Controlled breeding techniques

Animals mate when they are in heat. When females are in heat, the availability of superior quality males in that place is very rare. Sometimes even if the female is in heat the male rejects the female and mating does not occur. Further, male animals have limited potential to mate. The cattle bulls can mate only fifty to a hundred times a year. Moreover, exotic breeds require a suitable climate for a mating that is not present everywhere and every time. Natural meeting sometimes accompanies contagious diseases as the males and generally left in open to roam about and are not fed properly. To overcome all these problems controlled breeding using artificial techniques are carried out.

There are two artificial breeding techniques, artificial insemination that is AI, and multiple ovulation embryo transfer technology that is MOET.

Artificial insemination

In artificial insemination semen from superior quality males is collected by artificial technique. The semen collected may be used immediately or can be stored in frozen form in a cryogenic semen bank. When females are in heat the required amount of semen is injected directly into the reproductive tract. Natural fertilization takes place and the female becomes pregnant. Here freezing semen is a very good technique as it is easy to transport the semen in a frozen form to the place where the female is housed.

There are certain benefits of artificial insemination, these are:

• Semen can be preserved and sent to all insemination centers throughout the country.
• By this method, it is possible to mate different breeds of animals, even if a certain breed is not present in that geographic area.
• By adopting this method, farmers can avoid rearing exotic males in their farms. As semen procured from a single male is sufficient enough to inseminate a few hundred females and is economical.
• This technique reduces the chances of encountering contagious diseases also.

However, the success rate of crossing mature male and female animals is low even though artificial insemination is carried out.

Multiple ovulation embryo transfer technology

It in this method, the superior breed of the female is administered follicle-stimulating hormone that is FSH. This induces follicular maturation and superovulation where 6 to 8 eggs are produced per cycle instead of one. This female is known as a genetic mother. The female is then along to naturally mate with a superior quality male or it is artificially inseminated. All the eggs fertilized and when the fertilized embryos are 8 to 32 cell stages. They are recovered non-surgically and transferred to surrogate mothers. The genetic mother can once more be induced to superovulate and produce new embryos for surrogation. This technology has been demonstrated for cows, sheep, rabbits, buffaloes, mares, etc. As more than one zygote can be implanted into the mother. This technique is very useful to increase health science in a short time.