Does anyone know what causes fresh chilled semen to clump? I have had a few collections come in to us lately that are this way. Lots of semen but they are all clumped up in bunches.

Have you been using Minitube Chill 5? We sent a collection on our boy. The collection was done on Monday morning but held over by the bitch owners vet until Thursday. It was starting to clump around 50% of it. They say that when semen gets hungry it will clump in pairs. I am curious to know what brand of extender you are seeing that in. The other 50% was great, moving well. The bitch owner wanted two shipments in the same box. The first collection was done on Sunday evening, and the vet put it in on Tuesday. That looked great.

I have been told sometimes the clumped pairs will break up inside the bitch, once food because available. I am not sure if their is truth to this or not. Also that you can take a drop of the clump semen put it on a slide and add a drop of extender or glucose to see if it becomes active again. I just learned all these recently.

I have seen it recently in both Chill5 and most recently in Chill10. Almost ALL the semen is clumped, very little swimming freely.

I had clumping in the two most recent Chill 5. . Never seen it before in chill 5, chill 10 , or camelot

Hmmmm....so next question is, will clumping semen still impregnate the bitch?

I had a sample sent to me once. I asked my vet about it and he said it had coagulated? My bitch had a nice size litter.

Have you contacted the company to ask about this. I have never seen it in 5 or 10. Maybe there is a bad batch out there??

A couple of months ago I had this in a shipment using Chill5. This time it's in a shipment using Chill10. Different stud dogs from different parts of the country.

The chill 5 we had problems with exp 11/30/2012. I am curious to see if the batches all expire about the same time.

My experience is that it clumps when there's not enought extender/food for the sperm. Even if you watch a fresh collected (non-extended) specimen under the microscope, eventually they will all clump. I'd rather see a higher ratio of extender to semen or even a split sample than a small volume. I've recently received and sent several collections in Chill10 with appropriately extended semen (1:5) and haven't seen any clumping.

When we shipped it was just under 2 cc's of semen to 10 parts of extender. I used a whole bottle for the 2 shipments. There was still clumping. I know the extender is what feeds the semen. So its always best to use to much then not enough.

I have also been told that sperm cells will tend to try to penetrate white blood cells (some WBCs are common in semen samples). I don't know how true that is, but it makes sense since those sperm cells are programmed to penetrate any cell that is large and round like ova.
Other than that, it also makes sense that they might be clumped due to "clotting" of the sperm cells.

She is due with ONE puppy next week

Linda, do you have any idea what the exp. date was on that extender? The one I had problems with was 11/30/2012.

I shipped on a bitch a couple weeks later, the owner sent me Minitube Chill 5 from her office. That expired 4/2012. The collection was done on a Saturday morning, she received on a Monday. The collection was fine and no clumping.

Can anyone recall how long ago they got the extender and how long it was good for.

John told Gretchen that on day 4 or 5 the semen should still be around 83%, well on day 4 is was only 50% and clumped. I am going to personally call John today at Minitube.

Had 3 misses (3 different bitches, 2 different dogs)using that expiration date on chill 10. Timing was right on, semen looked great both ends (no clumping), but no puppies. Getting the boy's semen checked but had girls come here to be bred and no problems. Anyone else getting misses with this extender? I think I will start using CLONE again.

I may go back to using I.C.S.B., have NEVER had any issues with their extender.

Recently sent a shipment with chill 5 and bitch only had 1 puppy. Had used Chill 5 on this dog before, normal sized litters.
Soon after, sent another Chill 5 to a different bitch, 2 shipments. Repro on other end said semen was 40% on day 2 both times Bitch not pregnant.
Took dog to my repro had full analysis done as well as collection to be shipped, used Chill 10. Semen excellent quality and no issues at all.
Shipped out Chill 10.
Vet also put a small amount in Chill 5 to keep and look at later.
3 days post collection, Chill 5 semen DEAD and Chill 10 semen 86%.

Could this be why some of the 8 out of 9 missed? Many were Chill 5. I don't know the expiration dates.

Exactly.

Has anyone ever gotten to the bottom of this? I just had my first two shipments like this with the "new" Chill 5 and I am trying to find out more info. Please email privately if preferred.

I received a collection once that was clumped. My vet said it coagulated. We had a very nice litter.