Publish date: 6.18.25
In recent years, sexed semen has become a tool that is finding its way into the toolbox of progressive cattle producers more often. Why? Sexed semen has evolved and improved over the years. While the early versions were met with fertility concerns and unacceptable gender skew rates, that’s not the case with today’s technology as we’ve developed a better-quality product for producers to use. Sexed semen available currently offers you access to a wider selection of sires and performs at a fertility level that is even causing skeptics to considering use it.
Have you ever said, “I’d love to have a daughter of that cow,” or “The market is strong. I wished for more steers to sell.”
With sexed semen, you have the power to achieve either or both of those outcomes. The technology allows you to make the most of each pregnancy while using your limited resources wisely. Sexed semen can easily swing the gender skew of your calf crop to 60% or more of your desired calf sex. How would that additional 10% impact your bottom line?
In this blog, we will dive into three operational goals and how sexed semen can be used to make your cow herd more efficient and profitable in each scenario.
1. Creating More Marketable Bull Calves
In some parts of the U.S., the most valuable calf a seedstock producer can create is a marketable bull calf—particularly, producers west of the Mississippi River. The value difference can be drastic and in the thousands of dollars. Being able to generate a greater number of marketable bull calves within the calf crop from the same cow herd and feed resources makes a huge difference.
Depending on estrus synchronization and heat detection implemented, producers can easily achieve a 60% to 65% male calf crop by incorporating sexed semen on a portion of the cows at first service. For producers willing to heat detect and rebreed with male sexed semen, the skew can be even more pronounced. It is key to remember that bull production should be balanced with the need for replacement heifers.
2. Generating More Steer Calves
For commercial producers, the most valuable calf in the calf crop is male and driven even more by the value difference between steers and heifers in today’s beef supply chain. In a fixed time AI program with a judicious use of male sexed semen, producers can reasonably swing the distribution of the total calf crop to another 10% to 15% steers. That additional proportion of steers could equate to a full semi-load lot of steer calves, helping them capture even larger price premiums.
While the added performance of steer calves would certainly be welcomed, the knowledge that the average bull calf is born heavier might raise some concerns about calving difficulty in heifers. the number of highly proven bulls with exceptional Calving Ease Direct and low Birth Weight expected progeny differences (EPDs), coupled with explosive performance, is better than ever. Today’s genetics allow producers to produce more steer calves within the fear of increasing calving difficulty.
3. Producing More Ideal Replacements
The most valuable application of sexed semen is the ability to precisely create replacement females from the right cows, compounding the impact of retaining early born heifer with genetic selection for fertility and longevity. In today’s day and age, you can’t afford to make the wrong cow. When you can predict a female outcome with greater than 90% accuracy, you can laser focus your genetic selection toward creating replacement females with the genetic and phenotypic makeup best suited to your production system.
Depending on your expected replacement rate, this can easily be accomplished by inseminating less than 60% of your cows and heifers with female sexed semen. This opens up the remainder of your matings (both A.I. and natural service) to be more focused on performance and end-product merit.
The availability and quality of sexed semen today are encouraging progressive cattle producers to reconsider its use. In a world, when production costs are rising and grazing land can be limited, sexed semen is an additional tool to help you more efficiently use of your resources available. If you haven’t before, the time may be now to think about how sexed semen could help you make the most out of every pregnancy and produce a calf crop that is tailored to your goals.
Learn more about the these sexed semen strategies by reading our article originally published in Progressive Cattle.
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