I've heard and read about a new Extender from Belgium called VMD Z Extender. It's suppost to allow sperm to survive 6 days. Have you heard about it or tried it? Always up to new extenders, however, it says that it has to be centrifuged (15 minutes at 1400-1600 rpm) at a 1:1 ratio before being extended down further. Mixed extender can be kept at 5 degrees for 2 weeks.
We evaluated this extender last year before it was available on the market, both centrifuged and not centrifuged.
It worked very well with some stallions, and not with others. We felt that it was much like any other extender in that its success is subject to individual stallion variability. It is definitely worth adding to the panel of extenders that are (or should be) used in the pre-breeding season extender testing each year, as when it works well, it works well - although we did not see any 6-day wonders (again I suspect, something that was a quirk of individual stallion variability when it happened).
Note that centrifugation must be performed appropriately for individual stallions, and that most stallions have sperm that will not survive well if incorrectly handled during centrifugation. Note also that using rpm rather than rcf ("G" force) for the standard for centrifugation may lead to poor results, as each centrifuge could have different rcf at the same rpm - see out article on centrifuging semen for more details.
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