Australia-Gender based semen sales.

AUSTRALIA.

Gender based semen sales.

The orders for dairy cattle semen, based on gender have quadrupled in the last fewmonths.

Most of the semen is imported from the USA and costs around US$60 per straw, however it means the dairy farmer is guaranteed a heifer calf.

This is a sensible way for farmers in the short term, to avoid the very expensive heifers now on the market in Freisian and Holstein cattle.

Australia is very poor in finishing off the bull calves from dairy herds, compared with the rest of the world, choosing to sell the bobby calves for slaughter at a few days old.

Argentina and Europe, put the bull calves on a milk supplement and then into feedlots, killing them as young bulls at 12 months old at premium prices.