I'm located in Florida and have a Bel. Mali. There are no reputable breeders in this state so I have to either drive or ship my bitch when I want to breed her. This is something that I don't want to do so AI sounds like the option for me. My question: What is the cost of shipping the sperm? One breeder quoted me a price but I found her to be abit flaky, shady. So I wanted to get the info from someone who doesn't have $ as their agenda.

Ashley, when people store frozen semen they ain't gonna give it to you for free so $ will always be on the agenda, nothing you can do about that. An obvious point is that the cost of the semen will vary depending on the desirability of the stud dog. why don't you pm Ed? I'm sure he or other breeders on this board will be able to tell you the cost of shipping.

one point to jon, the original poster for this topic. One of the reasons SV don't allow AI breedings because they are protective of their own bloodlines and don't like the idea of breeders in the US (or here in Australia for that matter) getting hold of their bloodlines. A german breeder can travel a relatively short distance to put a stud to a bitch but if you're on a different continent and want to use a stud then a natural breeding to your own bitch is out of the question due to travel time, expense and quarantine hassles. So by removing AI the SV protects itself from non-germans doing desirable breedings. Quite an arrogant and petty view in my opinion. Never mind, there are ways around this...

I have done several equine breedings using shipped semen, including one to 3x HOY Spectacular Bid. There are great advantages to the use of shipped semen as noted, but also there are minuses. In Standardbreds for example, the gene pool is narrowing, and the stud fees are much much lower than in TBs - one of the biggest SB owners in the country is a half hour away, and a freiend of mine worked for him for many years.

I think our gene pool here is innudated with a large percentage of the same groups of lines and combinations. A large percentage of litters for sale are from breeders who are just bringingin bred bitches and then selling them and bringing in another one. Bloodlines are often repetitive and follow a few popular names/families for easy sales due to recognizablity.

AI is a way to bring in different blood, and develop some alternatives. And with frozen semen, you can have a long term plan and not worry about losing the male if you have the foresight to store semen. A very very good vet is your most important tool in the process. Added to a stud fee are the fees for the collection, prep, container, shipping etc. Storage for semen can run 75-100+ per year in advance. Since you save on travel, hotels, etc, it can actually save on money by doing an AI.

Lee

I was in Belgium last year and saw some of the dogs I was highly interested in. I also bought a couple of pups from those lines to work with them. We do not have the luxury of being able to cross several countries and 100s of breeders in a half day's drive.

Ashley, To answer your question about cost of importing frozen semen and/or shipping, I imported frozen semen from one of the Scandinavian countries back in 2003/04. The semen was given to me free, only for expenses. Total expenses were about $3,000.- Canadian. The expenses included vet fees for collecting the semen in the foreign country, documentation by vets in foreign country and in Canada, shipping via airline the Nitrogen container (as dangerous shipment), custom fees, inspection fees by Agriculture Canada, temporary storage in Nitogen while waiting for inspection, shipping via couriers from one location to other in Vancouver, Canada, and finally shipping the empty container via airline within the very tight time frame back to the departure destination and the vet in the foreign country. The frozen semen procedure in itself is costly, in addition, I had to ship the Nitrogen container as dangerous shipment via courier and BC ferry to my vet, cost about 20 times the cost of a regular parcel this size. Regarding the max. number of puppies in a litter, you will need to contact a knowledgable vet who has the information for your breed of dogs.

Ashely, what about Ivan Balabanov's mals? He has a couple nice stud males and competes internationally with them. He's in Plant City, FL.

Folks,
ya'll are replying to someone that asked a question nearly 2 1/2 years ago - often the person asking the question isn't even checking the thread any more, so there's no need to reply to these oldies, ok?

Will Rambeau
Moderator