We are having a heck of time lately with gel fraction and collection bottle blowouts. We always use disposable with our AV since we are collecting multiple stallions. We have used the baby bottle and filter with this happening everytime. We started using the Estrotec Inc collection bottles with attached liners without a problem until lately.
The last 3 times we have gone to collect our stallions we have had gel fraction and semen blow right out and through the threads on the bottle and I know it was nice and tight. One of our stallions sometimes has ALOT of gel fraction but never to the point of blowing the bottle. It hasn't just been one of our stallions it happened to one of our others as well.
It always figures too that it happens when you really don't need it to. I had a scheduled pickup today for shipment. We went to collect and lost everything due to this blowout problem the first time. Nothing worse then looking down and seeing gel fraction and semen streaming out the top of the bottle. Luckily that stallion has an amazing count, we were able to wait 30 minutes and collect him again with still getting 42ml of gel free semen and a 303 x 10(6)/ml collection. Thank goodness but it really stinks having to do this regularly.
Any ideas of what we may be doing wrong and how we can correct this?
Jos Posted From: 137.186.22.71
Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 08:50 pm:
I am not familiar with the brand of liner that you are using, so cannot really comment on them specifically.
When faced with high gel volume stallions, we do not use an in-line filter, but prefer to filter the entire ejaculate in the lab after collection. This allows replacement of the filter in the event that it becomes clogged during filtering.
Additionally, we use baby bottles and liners rather than commercial "collection bottles", which we feel are overpriced. This allows us to arrange our liner to have a longer "free end" hanging outside the AV, which in turn allows for greater expansion when the stallion is thrusting, and there is gel fraction present (which when combined with a tight liner and gel fraction can result in hydraulic pressure forcing ejaculate though any available opening such as the bottle threads).
There is much that is not understood about gel fraction (like why is it there??? ), but some stallions have more in the height of the breeding season (where we're getting close to), and others may respond with more gel if the AV is hotter or cooler than their liking, so you might want to try changing the temperature of the AV and see if that makes any difference.
And then, some stallions just have it... worst I saw was 350 ml of gel and about 20 ml of semen...
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), but some stallions have more in the height of the breeding season (where we're getting close to), and others may respond with more gel if the AV is hotter or cooler than their liking, so you might want to try changing the temperature of the AV and see if that makes any difference. 
