Cloning is a designer market but sexing sperm is now available

KEMPTVILLE – Quebec-based L’Alliance Bovitec, the research team that cloned the great bull Starbuck, says the cloning process is very expensive and still not efficient. Director of research and development, Patrick Blondin, told farmers at Kemptville that it cost $25,000 to $40,000 to clone one bull. Until the calf turns six-months-old, losses are high. "Calving is very sensitive," he said. Right now cloning is a designer market, highlighting the great bulls and aimed for high-priced markets. Two years ago at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, both the winner and the fourth-placed cow in the two-year-old class were clones. When sperm from celebrated bulls is in short supply, artificial insemination units hope to someday fill demand with sperm from clones, he said. Speaking at the Eastern Breeders annual meeting last month, Blondin defended the quality of cows cloned from bulls. He said cloned dairy animals at the University of Guelph were doing as well as other animals. Blondin was responding to a producer who noted that the clone Margo 11 did not perform nearly as well as her record setting mother, owned by Dr. R.J. Warren, of Port Hope. Milk from cloned cows in the U.S. cannot be sold and the milk marketing boards in Canada won’t touch it. On the upside, Blondin said the research lab has the ability to detect weak sperm and fertilize it, thus eliminating sperm that doesn’t get the job done. The lab received a request to clone a popular Calgary bucking bull. The bull died and the owners were counting on a clone to bring in the crowds. He says sexing is progressing but for some reason doesn’t work with the sperm of 20 per cent of the bulls. The female sperm can be separated in the lab because it has three per cent more DNA than the male sperm. However, sexing is not fool-proof though it improves your chances of getting a heifer. If you had 12 sperm samples, nature gives you a 50-50 chance of having a female. Sexing will up your chances to 8.5 in 12. Based in St. Hyacinthe, Bovitec is the research arm of Semex Alliance, of which Eastern Breeders has a 15 per cent share.