Semen Collection

Frozen, Cooled And Fresh AI

An appointment is necessary to arrange to have your dog’s semen collected and frozen. We only use the Camelot extenders system and produce pelleted semen packaged into screw-cap vials, each vial being one insemination (breeding) unit.

It is important to consider the recent breeding history of your sire when contemplating having his semen frozen. Ideally he has had a semen collection or mating in the past 2 months. If it has been six months or more without sexual activity the initial semen sample may be of inferior quality to freeze.

In such cases it may be worthwhile to collect the sire 7 days prior to the freezing appointment to stimulate the spermatogenic cycle. Ideally he hasn’t mated in the past three days.

Our facilities usually have a seasonal bitch available. If you are bringing a teaser bitch with you then be sure to travel them in separate compartments – ideally car and trailer.

Sires should be at least one year old and, depending on concurrent illness may be successfully collected past ten years. However, semen from older dogs may not “recover” as well during post thaw.

You will only be required to attend the clinic for approximately 30 minutes with your sire for collection and semen assessment. A freeze takes approximately 2 hours to complete and only when the final pellets are formed do we thaw one out to assess its recovery (post thaw motility). From this value we then calculate how many 'splits' are possible. It is like looking into the future as a pellet thawed at the time of freezing will look the same as if it was thawed in one month, one year or ten years from now.

We have state of the art clinics and surgical suites throughout Australia, each equipped with onsite kennel blocks for housing oestrous bitches prior to implantation.