Bovine Semen Collection.

From bull collection through to frozen semen and storage, Tyndale have the expertise and in house facilities to provide a fully comprehensive domestic bovine semen collection service.

Our team will travel to your farm to collect semen from your chosen bull(s), before returning the samples to our laboratory for processing, freezing and quality analysis.

Following post-frozen straw analysis, semen straws can either be shipped to an alternative location after 30 days or stored securely at Tyndale Vets for a small fee per month.

Additional requirements?

• An APHA licence is required before semen can be collected from a bull.

• All we need from you is the bull's passport and his last TB test date, and our team will complete and submit the licence application on your behalf.

• Please note that an application can only be made once the bull is out of the 60-day TB test window.

• Once the application has been received, APHA will instruct your regular vet to carry out the required TB and blood tests (Enzootic Bovine Leukosis and Brucellosis) before any semen collection can take place.

• When the application has been approved, the licence provides a 3-month window during which semen can be collected.

• We recommend having a small group of synchronised teaser animals available on the day of collection. The presence of bulling females helps encourage your bull to perform, so it is worthwhile identifying suitable animals in advance.

What will it cost?

• £50 – APHA licence application

• Regular Veterinary costings for TB and blood sampling*

• £200 – First semen collection, plus mileage

• £400 – Multiple collections

• £1.50 per straw – Processing and freezing

• Post-collection blood sampling, as required (variable) *

*These charges may not be invoiced through Tyndale, depending on whether we are your regular vets.

What are your next steps?

Contact a member of the team to discuss your breeding goals, circumstances and begin the licence application process.

We shall guide you through each step of the process.

Once all required paperwork and blood tests have been completed and the application has been approved, we will arrange a convenient date for your first semen collection.

What should you expect on the day of collection?

Our semen collection technician will travel to your farm with all the necessary equipment and documentation.

To help the visit run smoothly, we recommend preparing a suitable pen with an in-heat teaser animal securely tied between hay bales for stability.

Depending on your bull's enthusiasm, performance and the samples obtained, our technician will make multiple natural collection attempts. We advocate for natural collections as the semen is of a much better quality and will only resort to EEJ in special circumstances.

All semen samples will then be transported back to Tyndale, where it will be analysed, extended, and loaded into straws for freezing inside our dedicated semen laboratory. We will freeze the samples within 24 hours of the collection taking place.

Over the following days, our embryologist will assess a random selection of frozen straws for assessing progressive motility, concentration and morphology.

The results of this quality assessment determine whether the semen meets our required standards.

Once testing has been completed, we will contact you to discuss the results and confirm the final number of frozen semen straws produced. We will then discuss any post collection blood sampling that is required.

Our unique selling points are

1)      The capabilities to process the collection from start to finish within Tyndale

2)      We advocate natural collections; we avoid the use of EEJ wherever possible.