Advances Outlined in Use of Sex Sorted Sperm

Research aimed at sorting the sex of sperm in an effort to increase the female to male ratio of piglets born per litter is proving successful. "Recent Advancements in Reproduction and Sex Sorted Sperm" was among the topics discussed yesterday as part of weekly online session of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2020.

 

Dr. Brad Belstra, the Reproductive Services Manager with Fast Genetics, says the main goal of using sex sorted sperm is to produce liters with lots of gilts but very few boars.

 

 

Skewing the sex ratio of liters with sex sorted semen works. It closely matches the purity of the sample you use so there's no question about that piece. Advances to increase quality and quantity of sorted sperm are being made through software and hardware advances in sorting.

 

Surgical delivery of sex sorted sperm requires a much smaller dose. The improvements there are reducing the labor and making the process faster so we can do more animals and not require a large team to do that. That's one of our current objectives. The other one is to continue to push for uterine delivery of sex sorted sperm, which would be more similar to what people are used to today with conventional AI.

 

The keys there are using boar fertility to our advantage, precision delivery with ovulation and also the site that we place it at may help us reduce sperm dose further. As we make those discoveries and improvements, those could also be applied to non-sorted sperm and improve the genetic efficiency of conventional AI as well so that would be good for the whole industry, not just for sex sorted sperm.

Video: 2026 T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science - Dan Weary

T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science: "Using science to assess and improve the welfare of dairy cattle"

Dan Weary is a Professor at the University of British Columbia. Dan did his BSc and MSc at McGill and Doctorate at Oxford before co-founding UBC’s Animal Welfare Program where he now co-directs this active research group. His research focuses on understanding the perspectives of animals and applying these insights to develop methods of assessing animal welfare and improving the lives of animals. His work has helped drive changes in practices (including the adoption of higher milk rations for calves and pain management for disbudding) and housing methods (including the adoption of social housing for pre-weaned calves). He also studies cow comfort and lameness, social interactions among cows, and interactions between cows, human handlers and technologies like automated millking systems that are increasingly used on farms. His presentation will outline key questions in cattle welfare, highlight recent UBC research addressing them, and showcase innovative methods for improving the lives of cattle and their caretakers.