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Re: AI today early or hold it?

Camelot extender
There was a good thread that I found from 2 yrs ago comparing Camelot vs Chill 5. At the time, many favored Camelot. I have a dilemma w/ the holiday week and breeding so had to make an early decision on collection/shipping yesterday, hoping my girl was 2 days from ovulation. Ends up she's probably not ovulating until today (was 3.9 yesterday at 3pm). I had snagged the last appt for the day at 11 this am (assuming the package shows on time!) but now wonder if I should not just hold it until Thurs am which would be the +2 day most likely. I have another coming on Thurs for Fri delivery. So the Q is, is it better in the bitch, or better in the fridge? My vet has commented he thinks it lives longer in the bitch and has done 1 AI for me at day 0 w/ Chill 10 w/ a follow up at +3 w/ Chill 5 and we got a full litter of 8. I've done several at +1, +3 and had full litters. I have no experience at all w/ refrigerating Camelot, however. Stud has been producing large litters w/ other bitches and this bitch whelped 10 w/ her only other litter, using Chill 5 at +2 and +4 days. What to do, what to do.....


I think you'll be too early if you get her inseminated today but your later shipment should work. I wouldn't stop progesterone testing until you see at least a 5. Looking at your dates above it's easy to predict your bitch probably conceived at +3 both times not from the day 0 or day +1.

The differences between a Chill 5 and Chill 10 has little affect on how long the sperm will live in the bitch but has to do with how long it will store until ready for use. Once the sperm is removed from the nutrients sustaining them in the extender they have 12 hours to live.

Re: AI today early or hold it?

And once inside the bitch, what does fresh semen live on? Have there really been studies of all of this or is it all speculation, because I've gotten quite the range of opinions. Normally, +2 and +4 days from ovulation (using 5ng as that base) is ideally what I've tried to target, but lately I've heard more folks using terms of "x days from LH surge" (and then the definition of the LH surge varies since most are not measuring that, but using the corresponding range in progesterone values). Some will call 4ng ovulation (ICSB as I recall), so perhaps the slightly earlier insemination is doing more than we think. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find concrete info on whether to expect the semen to live longer in the bitch vs in the fridge, and since this was only a 2 day extender, I punted and got the goods into her later today once Fedex finally arrived at 1pm. I couldn't bear the thought of looking at it on Thurs am, dead in the vial! Sure wasn't going to do anything that way, and yes, it was a 2 day extender unfortunately, so theoretically, it'd start to run out tomorrow. Oh well, have another coming for the end of the week and I'll confirm progesterone Thurs and can window that from there.