# Farm animal breeding. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 25, 2010, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909 "2010-11-25T18:54:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/41 "2010-11-28T04:41:11Z")
Quoth **penultima thule** : > [@](#): > > Technically, the sheeps reproductive tract is substantially more complex than other domesticated mammals, having a curved and folded cervix. The pipette system going through the cervix as used in cattle is not feasible. Simply placing semen against the cervix is called “shot in the dark” and has a low success rate. But obviously they manage to do it in nature. Why can’t they just make an insemination device shaped like a ram’s penis? Or do sheep “doin’ what comes naturally” just use the “shot in the dark” method, too, and just make up for it with quantity? ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2010, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/42 "2010-11-28T07:29:49Z")
Fair question, and googling “picture ram penis” gets some curious hits. But in essence, you are correct, nature uses “shot in the dark”. A ram’s penis tip is screw shaped and designed to splatter the cervix. Where nature gets it’s advantage for sheep is the mucous strands secreted by the ewe’s cervix aids the passage of sperm. This has proved to be less effective under the conditions of AI with synchronised oestrus. Mainly because each of the components i.e. amount of sperm, viability of sperm, volume and character of the mucous are less optimal, and that in the field a ram is more likely to serve at the time of peak fertiity. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2010, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/43 "2010-11-28T08:52:08Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > I always thought steers produced much better meat than bulls. > > I also thought that steers produced better meat than cows, but read somewhere that MacDonalds requires a certain perscentage of cow meat in their burgers which is why their meat just melts away in your mouth. Steers produce **more** meat than bulls; that’s one major reason for beef herds being mostly steers. (The other main reason is their temperament – steers are more docile than bulls, so they are less dangerous to the farmer and also don’t fight among themselves as much.) And again, steers produce **more** meat than cows. Both bulls and cows divert some food into reproductive systems; steers don’t. Bull meat does have more testosterone, and cow meat does have more estrogen, but the difference that makes in the taste of the meat is too minor for most people to notice. Cows (especially dairy cows) produce leaner meat (the fat goes into the milk), and it is often mixed in to get hamburger with the desired fat content. But the main reason is that dairy cows have been bred for generations to produce milk, not meat – the steaks, roasts, filet mignon, etc. from dairy cattle just isn’t near as good as from beef cattle. In other words, dairy meat isn’t good enough for anything but hamburger. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2010, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/44 "2010-11-28T09:02:56Z")
> [@Floater](#): > > A cousin of mine has a herd of beef cattle that takes care of themselves all year round. He just culls it every now and then. AI is much more common in dairy cattle than beef cattle. One reason is that the difference between top-quality dairy sires and average ones is greater than with beef cattle sires. And it’s more important tot he farmer – beef cattle go to slaughter about age 2-1/2; dairy cows have a productive lifespan of double or triple that. So a poorer quality dairy cow is a drain on the farmers profits for much longer than a poor beef animal. Also, dairy operations require much more work with the cows every day – most dairy farmers are just too busy for the extra work of keeping a bull around, when AI is so cheap & easy. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2010, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/45 "2010-11-28T09:33:28Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > I think there’s a similar situation for pigs, but I don’t know for sure. I might have gotten that idea because a pig’s wee wee is shaped kind of like a corkscrew. I’ve never seen pigs bred, only slaughterd. They didn’t like it. I’ve seen AI delivery systems for pigs. They’re corkscrew shaped. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/46 "2010-11-28T17:46:25Z")
> [@](#): > > AI is much more common in dairy cattle than beef cattle. > > One reason is that the difference between top-quality dairy sires and average ones is greater than with beef cattle sires. And it’s more important tot he farmer – beef cattle go to slaughter about age 2-1/2; dairy cows have a productive lifespan of double or triple that. So a poorer quality dairy cow is a drain on the farmers profits for much longer than a poor beef animal. Another reason is probably that beef cattle are often free-range, so all you have to do to get natural breeding is to leave a few bulls ungelded, but you’d have to go to the effort of herding them back to the barn to do artificial insemination. With dairy cattle, though, they might spend their entire lives in a stall, and even if they do range out to feed, you have to bring them back to the stalls every day for milking, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/47 "2010-11-28T18:12:28Z")
I’ve seen cows actually run back to tha barn for milking when the milker person came and called them. I really [love](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCUxtLu2frU&NR=1) cows. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/48 "2010-11-28T18:36:54Z")
I breastfed my daughter. Believe me, when it’s time to drain the old tits, it can get painful if the milk isn’t released. Since milking only occurs twice a day, I imagine that the cows feel pretty relieved when they hear the call to come in and get milked. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/49 "2010-11-29T01:37:04Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > I think there’s a similar situation for pigs, but I don’t know for sure. I might have gotten that idea because a pig’s wee wee is shaped kind of like a corkscrew. I’ve never seen pigs bred, only slaughterd. They didn’t like it. I have a friend who was working on a pig breeding farm in Denmark, I can ask him if you really need to know =) Though my sheep bred the natural way, 2 ewes and a ram in a pasture playing =) Though you can see pictures of flocks in Scotland with rams having a collar with little bag of dry dye, and the ewes will get dots of whatever color on their ass, indicating they had been bred =) When you are talking about flocks of several hundred ewes, it can end up costing a lot to get a vet in to breed them. I really don’t see any real advantage to the normal flock being inseminated unless you are deliberately trying to go for show champions. I do have somewhere the documentation on the lineage of my now deceased rambouillet Rambeaux, though I couldn’t tell you if he was a product of insemination or natural sheep shaggings. i suppose I could try and contact the original farm and ask. ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/50 "2010-11-29T02:12:20Z")
Quoth Penultima Thule > [@](#): > > Fair question, and googling “picture ram penis” gets some curious hits. You HAD to say that…and I had to try it:smack::smack: ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/51 "2010-11-29T03:37:18Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > I always thought steers produced much better meat than bulls. Since I didn’t want to sort out generations for breeding and I didn’t want inbreeding, it meant a fresh unrelated bull every year. He was in the freezer before he had a chance to get old and tough (typically about 18 months old), and tasted just fine to me. Less fat than the steers, but I’m a lean beef fan. > [@mangeorge](#): > > I remember reading that cattlemen cut the horns off longhorns to make then less mean. That was back in the day, so maybe “horns” was a metaphor (wrong word) for “balls”. Definitely a euphemism. Cutting off the horns doesn’t change the temperament at all. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/52 "2010-11-29T04:36:48Z")
Even if cutting the literal horns off a bull wouldn’t change his temperament, though, it might make a nasty temperament a little less dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/53 "2010-11-29T04:55:56Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > When you are talking about flocks of several hundred ewes, it can end up costing a lot to get a vet in to breed them. You don’t pay a Vet to do this for a whole flock! The AI company that sells you the semen has technicians that do this, with far less training than a Vet, but at a far cheaper cost. Or people managing a large flock like this will learn to do it themself – it isn’t that hard to learn. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909/54 "2010-11-29T10:22:40Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > You don’t pay a Vet to do this for a whole flock! The AI company that sells you the semen has technicians that do this, with far less training than a Vet, but at a far cheaper cost. Or people managing a large flock like this will learn to do it themself – it isn’t that hard to learn. In small ruminants, depending on where the frozen semen is going to be deposited, someone may very well opt for the vet. AI in small ruminants (the procedure) is not exactly the same as AI in horses, or cows, or pigs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-animal-breeding/561909.md?page=2)