I have some questions on artificial insemination. How successful is using artificial insemination compared to a Natural Breeding? Do most "take", and if so are litter sizes comparable to a natural breeding? How expensive is it (to both have it done as well as to collect semen and store it)?

I can only speak from the 1 experience we had. It was successful, resulting in 5 puppies. Knew what stud we wanted, knew it would be an AI. What we had was a side by side fresh semen AI, not a surgical implant. This was the bitch's first and only litter.
We did all the progestrone testing to have proper timing of the insemination of our bitch for optimum results.
If one does not do progestrone testing on their bitch when doing a natural breeding, I suppose then it would be more costly.
Surgical implant, I think, has the best rate of conception for stored semen, of course that would be more expense than natural breeding due to the Vet fees involved.

Did a couple of fresh chilled AIs about 8 years ago. First breeding yeilded 4 pups, and second one pup. Just finished a frozen AI last week. Too early to tell if she took yet, but the total cost to date is about $1100; physical, 3 progesterone tests, and 2 transcervical insemenations. Next scheduled expense will be an ultra sound at about 28 days post insemenation.

Don't remember how much the collection ran, but storage is $90/year. The semen I used was collected in 2002 and was still very active when thawed.

Tom

Tatonka,

I have had 3 surgical AI's done with "Meg" ("Nicky" 2006; "Rudy" 2007; "Curry" 2008) by Dr.Pew from Orem, Utah. Dr. Pew has a 90 percent plus success ratio with surgical AI's and is pretty well known amongst field trial folks in Utah, Idaho, and many other areas. He has been close with Linda Harger for a long time and also coached Wendy Chisholm with the AI done with "Nicky" x "McKenzie" litter of 2002. Tom Cox sent me to Dr. Pew in 2006 and I am very glad I used his services.

"Meg's" first litter only produced 2 pups; the second with "Rudy" 9 with 10 conceived; the third with "Curry" 7 pups whelped and 10 conceived. Dr. Pew's fees are substantially less that most vets and I intend to use their sevices in the future.

Keith

quote:

Originally posted by tatonka:
I have some questions on artificial insemination. How successful is using artificial insemination compared to a Natural Breeding? Do most "take", and if so are litter sizes comparable to a natural breeding? How expensive is it (to both have it done as well as to collect semen and store it)?

I have done a number of fresh chilled breedings. I have used surgical implants and have had large litters of 9 to 12/ I have done one frozen- again an implant and 11 pups. IMO, you need to find a vet who has the "touch". With frozen, a normal AI will be unlikely to yield puppies.

DYane

Well in Northern California there is Dr. Autumn Davidson. She does all the reproduction work for UC Davis. She also runs the repro. work in a clinic in Rohnert Park CA. Here is the link http://www.accsonoma.com/staff...rs_internal_med.html. She does a lot of work for the seeing eye dogs for the blind. She did the work for my female Zuggie's insemination. Now if you are in southern California Dana Bleifer is the one to see here is her clinics site. http://clonewest.com/
-Paige