Thawing Semen

Has anyone had any luck putting the straw in frozen and let the body temp of cow do the thawing?

Genex is the only company I know of anyway that promotes "pocket thawing". I do it often with their semen but never anyone else's.

I know several guys that do it like that.  Two of them have been doing it that way for 15 plus years

i do it on occasion, and yes you can settle cows on it. but i would prefer a warm water bath to thaw. a slow thaw however with water less than ninety but no less than oh i'd say 70-75 still works just fine

There was a time in the 80's or early 90's when this was somewhat popular.  It can work and I've done it this way but I think I have more success with the warm water thawing method. 

Genex does the pocket thaw because they have a milk based extender.  I would not suggest thawing the straw inside the cow, the quicker you unthaw the straw the better because as the sperm are unthawed you don't want their tails to be cut by ice crystals.

Doing AI for others and not always having water available, I always thawed the straws under my arm (gezz its cold!!!!!) but never had any problems with conception rates.  I usually run around 75% +

Back when I started, back in the day when it was Midwest Breeders Coop, they had the semen already froze in pipettes and just had to use an extender and they recommended getting into the cow as soon as possible.

hamburgman said:

Genex does the pocket thaw because they have a milk based extender.  I would not suggest thawing the straw inside the cow, the quicker you unthaw the straw the better because as the sperm are unthawed you don't want their tails to be cut by ice crystals.

Click to expand...

Yep, I use one the 12v that plugs into the truck