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boars.
"There is no such thing as 'one
size fits all'," Gingerich says. "there
are different sow bases out there,
there are different marketing grids.
Some (producers) would say `I need
more -emphasis on growth or more
emphasis on carcass, or emphasis on
throughput — whatever it is that
makes them the most money. That's
good for us too."
There's no doubt the move to
artificial insemination in the
past 15 years has played a
huge role in the genetric
improvement of the Canadian herd.
"The percentage of AI has
absolutely ramped up since 1990 or
1991," says Gingerich who was
working at Thames Bend Farms at
the time. He's guessing five or 10 per
cent of breeders might have used AI
at the time.
"The success rate wasn't good
then," adds Vandenbroek. "(Now)
the products for keeping semen alive
prolonging that life and the
knowledge we can bring to the
producers is so much more advanced.
Now it's fair to say that it's either
equal, or sometimes AI can be better.
in conception (than natural breeding).
It should be better because the semen
is checked so we know the semen
quality."
"I'm guessing a good 80 per cent
of the sows in Ontario are bred
artificially," says Gingerich. (Some
European countries are in the 85-90
per cent range, he estimates.)
This widening use of AI has
helped speed the explosion of
improved genetics.
"Right now you can take those top
boars and disperse them so much
wider as far as having an influence,"
Gingerich says. "It's a great tool to
get top genetics out quickly."
OSI's 423 -boar herd is housed in
three different barns on two sites.
The site near Innerkip has two barns,
the original one built in the late
1990s and a new, export barn, built
to European Union standards with
among the highest levels of security
in the world.
It has 88 spaces in a stand-alone
barn, 100 feet away from the existing
domestic barn. Semen is transported
from that barn to the lab using a
pneumatic tube system in controlled
temperature with no exposure to air.
"There's no faster way to get semen
Qallagh �_
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JUNE 2006 19