SpringWaterStation.com blog

 Well maybe that’s dreaming, but sperm Sexing, for horse breeders, to predetermine the sex of offspring prior to breeding, thereby maximizing, profitability, is soon to be a reality.

Sorting by sex is not entirely new, the technology has been available since the late 1980s; it was used by a research team to produce the world’s first lamb, of a pre-determined sex in 1995, although the procedure used then was too complex to be taken up commercially.

But today, pre-selecting a foal’s sex, has become a commercial reality. The ability to select sex will have a beneficial impact on horse breeding. In a horse market already flooded with unwanted animals smaller pinpoint breeding program can fill market demand.

Serious horse breeders,” including Kiger Mustangs, quarter horses, Arabians and others, have preferences, for which sex they want in different equestrian sports. If you’re a performance horse breeder, say for jumpers then you want males, the most successful jumpers are usually male because of greater strength and muscle mass, if your market is breeding animals quality fillies sell three to one plus the profit margin is two fold over trained geldings. So gaining a reliable way to select for sex will be beneficial to breeders.

The economic returns from sex selection for other livestock should be even larger. In cattle, dairy farmers want cows to be born, rather than bulls. So if the sex ratio can be skewed to make almost all of the calves born female, the number of pregnancies needed to build a herd will be cut in half. We know that about 10 million dairy calves annually born male are slaughtered at birth, because bulls are useless in the milk business, except for a few needed for breeding. Similarly, beef breeders prefer males, and breeding only to get big, muscular bulls could significantly improve profits for the meat industry.

The new technology does not involve genetic modification, is non-invasive. I anticipate this inexpensive approach will launch possible in 2008.