Semen storage. Where is best?

Buy a tank and keep it at the farm. Keep a log book in a way that demands you make sure the tank is refilled and does not go dry. If you collect a buck and are looking to sell the semen rather than use it on your farm, I would recommend GLSS or Hawkeye Breeders.

Oh man I sure would love to comment on this thread. Naw, I better not. ;P

Roger

I know what you mean. I could call a couple places today and transfer me some semen that isn't mine. I once had 5 straws of Maxbo Ebenezer stored at one of these places. Now I have zero. I would have liked to have used him. Another place we had semen stored mixed hundreds of straws in our account with Hurricane Creek Lodge's from Alabama. Then they had no idea who owned what. GLSS nickels and dimes you worse than anywhere else but I trust the integrity of the facility. I don't care for all the silly charges. Hawkeye Breeders is a well run place. It wasn't as accessible for me to drive to from Indiana as GLSS.

I myself would go to Champion in Texas to store them. Its like 25 bucks to even transfer a straw into Great Lakes and Champion has never charged me and the quarter charge at Champion was 10 bucks compared to GL at 35.  GL is the most expensive but i also have a tank and it cost me about $30 to fill every 4 months so their charges on the storage are not to far off but man $25 just to push a button is a tad steep.

I would never ship expensive semen. Drive and go get it yourself. Storing semen at your farm also allows you to avoid the cost of shipping it to your farm every year before you AI.

A place that many seem to use and say is so great destroyed 2 straws that I know personally were in perfect condition when I shipped them. The straws were two different bucks and sent there in two different shipments. Both times they told the people who were getting the straws put into their accounts that the straw was broken when it arrived.


 


Anyone who knows me knows I am pretty dang anal about how things are done. That is why I store my own straws and have my own shipper tank. Because I don't trust anyone else to be as cautious and specific with my straws as I myself would be.


 


The same place talked about above pulled this little stunt also. My friend had purchased a straw approx 3 years or so earlier and had it in his account. Instead of using it he decided years later to sell it. He sent them a request saying transfer "X" straw from his account into the account of the buyer. It was a single straw of a buck he didn't personally own but was reselling it. So another words it was a one of a kind straw and hard to find. A while after getting the request they told him, "Oh that straw was broken when it arrived here. I had a note in your file to tell you but forgot."


ARE YOU SERIOUS??? That is a professional semen storage facility???


 


From talking with folks who use or used to use them they are apparently the most expensive also. I think it has been mentioned they "nickle and dime" everyone with fees ;P


I have heard some justify the use of them because so many farms use them it makes transferring between accounts easier.


 


I have seen how some of the other places operate also and at times it is shocking how things are done. A local guy in my area wanted some straws sent to him but needed me to store the straws for a few weeks before he used them. He brought the tank over that the straws were sent in. WOW! The exterior shell of the tank was broken, not locked closed and looked like it had been mounted on the front quarter panel of a NASCAR and just completed a weekend race at Talladega Speedway. The interior tank looked ok, but there was serious concern about the semen quality.


 


Having your own storage tanks has advantages and drawbacks.


1. Sometimes it would be easier to just call or fax a transfer between accounts during a sale or purchase if using a professional storage place.


2. Not everyone has a solid understanding of how to properly handle the straws and if you are not one of them then let those who do know how, do it for you. Despite the fact some professional places screw up the straws also.


(As a side story to this, check this out. One time a semen buyer told me he was prepared to get his straw. He showed up with a brand new Igloo cooler fresh off the shelf at Walmart. He even had the blue ice packs inside. I thought he was kidding and laughed my a$# off! The look of horror on my face must have been something to see once I realized he was SERIOUS!)


3. Nitrogen costs have gone up about 5 times in price over the last 10 or so years. If you own your own tank it will not be cheap to keep it charged up. The professional places get their nitrogen in large quantities and therefore they save money over how we buy it.


4. UPS shipping charges. The same goes here. These places get better prices for shipping due to the amount of business they do as a company. A private person can not compete with these costs.


(The above 2 points can be adjusted if you can go through your work place or your own business to secure better pricing. Also I very much HIGHLY recommend not using FedEx to ship tanks with. Only use UPS. FedEx sucks with automatic recall tags. In fact the term "automatic" is a misnomer when it comes to FedEx)


5. Storing your own semen or at a local place near your farm gives you the ability to keep an extra straw or two on hand during the AI process should the need arise. Over the years it has only happened once, however when it happens a back up straw is handy to have. Once while thawing a straw the straw split open and became useless to us. I was told it was because there was too much air inside the straw and not enough semen and extender. When the temperature changed from frozen to thawing it split. Having a spare was handy. If you have to ship or drive long distances for your semen having spares on hand is difficult.


 


Anyway, just some thoughts on the topic from someone who has done this for a while. And I never mentioned any names!! ;P

Roger

Thanks for speaking your mind. If you ship semen regularly it is just a matter of time before you receive a dry tank. That is why I will often drive to pick semen up. It is very expensive to insure high dollar semen while it is in transit. I have worked for UPS for twenty three years and I am confident we do a better job than FedEx period but we do turn a semen tank on its side occasionally while it is in transit. When a straw is one of the only left or of high value, I would highly recommend strapping the tank in the car or truck and going to get it.

Jonathan, I would imagine a straw could get damaged during shipping. But the examples I gave this storage place had the same story each time. They claim the straw was broken about an inch to an inch and a half from the end. It is my belief they grab the end of the straw and pull it out of the cane and let a frozen stiff straw bend to a breaking point. What they should be doing is sliding the goblet up to gain access to the lower straws and they should be moving the top of the cane where the writing is to gain access to the upper straws in a cane. There is no reason to bend a straw when you can easily make access unrestricted to the straws. I do this each time while the straws are still submerged in the nitrogen.


I heard you worked for UPS but forgot that when I made my comments about the two shipping companies. Wasn't trying to suck up to ya! LOL

I bought 5 straws of a buck named Prentice for $900 years ago from an old deer auction that was called World of Whitetails.They were supposed to be moved from Genex in Missouri to interglobe. Somehow they never made it to our account there. I don't know who to blame but I donated $4,500 to someone's pocket.

Genex is who we use. They are not taking any more deer clients sure to the expensive semen. We have had good luck and they are about 30 minutes from us.

I added another point to my posting above in post #7 of this thread. After getting an inquiry via private message about timing of pulling CIDR vs semen insertion. Due to an issue during CIDR pulling one doe will not be on the same time frame as the others. What do to with the straw or use it was the question. Because the timing was not super far off from "normal" timing and because the single straw would need to be shipped back to the storage place incurring more costs for shipping and handling fees I suggested using the straw.


And then I recalled an issue I had once with a straw that split open during thawing. I had a spare straw available so no big deal for me. I used the spare and went on with life.


 


So below is what I added to the post above.


 


5. Storing your own semen or at a local place near your farm gives you the ability to keep an extra straw or two on hand during the AI process should the need arise. Over the years it has only happened once, however when it happens a back up straw is handy to have. Once while thawing a straw the straw split open and became useless to us. I was told it was because there was too much air inside the straw and not enough semen and extender. When the temperature changed from frozen to thawing it split. Having a spare was handy. If you have to ship or drive long distances for your semen having spares on hand is difficult.

We use university of Illinois they charge us $40 a year no matter how many straws we have and zero to transfer a straw. They have always been great to work with. Dr Shipley does our collections as well.

I am with roger , i have a horrible experience with the same company he is talking about. I now use HAWKEYE they are night and day! When you call hawkeye  they are super friendly on the phone and not like your bothering them. 

I have used Great Lakes for years and never had a problem always first class service.

Last year i had 30  does to lap ai, the semen arrived on friday we were breeding at 11 am on saturday. I don't own my own semen tank so i opened the shipper to check what they shipped me it was all right .  Saturday arrives everything was going so smooth we got all the does to asleep and ready to bred then BAM the vet says the first straw of semen was no good , not a issue i had a extra one . Then a second one bad , third bad every straw was no good all 15 straws were no good!!!!!  Every one that ai's every year puts there heart and soul into making sure everything goes according to the time table. Then not including all the time spent deciding what to bred what doe to what sire to make the fawns more marketable for the sales. This has set my program back yrs in breeding, plus the deer that i was going to sell in auctions i couldn't , deer i had sold bred to certain sires i had to refund all the money. When this company called my vet he told them is was all bad , then they called me and screamed and hollered at me like it was my fault , i never touched the semen i said that just made it worse. I know of  other farms that got the wrong semen when they called to ask how this could of happened , they got the response of '" ATLEST THE SEMEN WAS GOOD"  when you have your best does ready to bred to big rig and then send you a straw that is  no where near the same league. I hope no one ever has to go thru what i did , i cant begin to tell you what it has done.   But i would like to say that most everyone replaced the semen, and those guys i will always do business with in the future. 

I have one company ( in michigan )that if I have the choice I will never use again. They nickle and dime you to death charge you to handle semen they never touch and if they do have to touch it to put in a tank. Well that's 30 more it's rediculace and on top of that I called two weeks early to make sure all my semen was there in time to Ai (I have my own tank) and it barely made it there. Talking about wanting to pull my hair out. The only problem is 90 per of deer farmers use them so your at there mercy

I agree with most everything about our buddies in Michigan, but I'll keep an account there with most of the semen from my draws but it's basically just there because the majority of farmers use them.  Other than to keep the excess from your own bucks and handle transfers there's no reason not to just keep everything in your own tank.  Before I started one of the farms I visited was Cougar Ridge and now in hindsight I completely understand why he had huge nitrogen tanks and about a dozen shipping tanks around...

I say it is time the industry makes a shift towards better service and reasonable pricing.