Could someone tell me the steps for freezing semen - what equipment I would need and how to fill 5 ml straws. I am considering collecting my stallion by chemical ejaculation - that would eliminate the centrifuge process.. right??
Chemical collection will only work - statistically - 70% of the time in 70% of stallions, so in other words about half the time overall. On top of that, you will not necessarily get a sample concentrated enough to remove the need for centrifugation. You might, or you might not. Chemical collection is therefore not a reliable collection method upon which you can depend. You will still require a centrifuge and the equipment to run it.
You will also need a sperm counting device, centrifugation and freezing media, nitrogen tanks, thermocouple, racks, freezing container, pipettor, and all of the other usual lab equipment for handling semen if you do not already have it - incubator, microscope, slide warmer etc. Plan on spending between $10,000 and $20,000 for a basic set-up depending upon how basic you want it to be.
The the other vitally important ingredient is knowledge. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, so that we don't see as many incompetent persons attempting it as we do with cooled transported semen), freezing semen is considerably more complicated than working with cooled semen. Each step requires absolute efficiency in order to avoid damage to the sperm. Damage at each step has a compound effect - in other words, you don't lose a few sperm here and a few sperm there, you lose 10% multiplied by (10% - 10%) etc. In fact, it is such a complex procedure that I would strongly recommend taking a course to learn how to freeze semen before even comtemplating attempting it - it is not something that can be learned from a bulletin board on the Internet! CSU offers such a course.
Plan on spending a lot of time energy and money before getting a consistent result - and remember that not all stallions do freeze, thaw and retain fertility, no matter what you do
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