Pork artificial insemination seminar deadline July 17

COLUMBUS – To help Ohio’s pork producers increase the efficiency of their artificial insemination programs, the Ohio Pork Industry Center is holding an artificial insemination school July 24 in the Animal Science Building of OSU. The deadline to apply is July 17.

The school is designed to give hands-on training in artificial insemination and practices that will increase reproductive efficiency.

The program is designed for employees and those involved with the breeding and gestation area of pork producing operations.

Schedule. The day will consist of demonstrations on collecting boar semen and inseminating estrous sows as well as sessions addressing key issues in pork reproduction. One such issue is the effect inseminators have on reproductive performance, a significant problem according to Don Levis, coordinator of Ohio Pork Industry Center.

“The number one problem I see with AI is people,” he said. “People get in too big of a hurry, they don’t have the proper training, or they don’t understand what they are trying to accomplish.”

Studies have shown that overworked or disgruntled workers can greatly decrease the farrowing rate of gilts. The farrowing rate decreases by almost 15 percent when a technician inseminates more than 15 gilts without taking a break.

Also, unpleasantly handled gilts had a farrowing rate almost 55 percent lower than pleasantly handled gilts.

Learning. Participants of the school will learn more about these effects and how to minimize their influence in their operation. They also will learn about the influence of biological variation on inseminations, selection of artificial insemination boars and emerging artificial insemination technologies, such as sexed semen and embryonic transfers.

The school is organized into morning, afternoon and evening programs. The demonstrations will be held in the morning and evening and the educational sessions will be in the afternoon program.

Specifics. Participants can register for morning and afternoon, afternoon and evening, afternoon only, or all three sessions. The registration fee is $40 per person, which includes meals, refreshments and reference materials.

Enrollment is limited to 60 people.

For more information call 800-398-7675 or 614-292-1351.