Breeding to Frozen Semen

Congratulations on purchasing a frozen semen breeding!  We are super excited to help you and your veterinarian with your mare breeding endeavors.  Frozen semen breeding can be slightly more complex than breeding with fresh/cooled semen and is not as familiar of a process to all potential breeding clients.  Because of that, we wanted to provide some basic guidelines to help everyone plan for success:

• Frozen semen needs to be stored in liquid nitrogen at all times. We recommend checking in with your veterinarian that they’ll have an appropriate location to store the frozen semen as not all veterinarians have liquid nitrogen storage tanks. The vapor shipper is not a storage tank and therefore it must be unloaded and shipped back to us immediately. Due to the high demand for frozen semen shipments, the Burwash Equine vapor shipper MUST be back in the mail to us within 24 hours of receipt (with exceptions for weekends and STAT holidays).

• Due to the preparation and shipping times of our vapor shipper, please order your frozen semen early! We can ship at any time of year! Vapor shippers take up to 48 hours to “prime” with liquid nitrogen to ensure they are cold enough to deliver the semen safely to your chosen location. It is recommended to have your veterinarian call our clinic and organize delivery of the allocated doses of frozen semen before your mare is being checked. This ensures that the frozen semen is ready and on-hand when your mare needs to inseminated.

• Have your veterinarian contact us directly – we like to collaborate with our fellow vets! This will allow us to coordinate with them when they will be best suited to receive and unload the semen, when the mare needs semen by, and make any last minute changes as needed.

• Are you unsure if frozen semen is going to work for you, your mare, and your vet’s arrangements? Feel free to give us a call at 403-242-1913 and we’d be happy to visit with you.