Freezing semen, thawing semen from a practitioner’s perspective

In domestic ruminants, reproductive efficiency is the driver of economic returns. Ideally a cow, ewe, etc. produces offspring ev­ery 12 months.1,2 Beef cattle tend to have a per service pregnancy rate of about 58 to 60% which over three service intervals should yield an overall pregnancy rate of over 90% (the reader should re­alize that being pregnant does not necessarily lead to a full-term parturition event). Producers might not realize this and grow dis­appointed with an AI pregnancy rate that is, let us say, 60%, be­cause they assume a whole breeding period pregnancy rate with a bull is due to single, not single plus multiple, services.