| VAI - Vaginal Artificial Insemination of Sheep with Deep Frozen Semen Dr. Thorsteinn Olafsson of Iceland pioneered the technique to freeze ram semen in such a way that it could be transported frozen, eventually thawed, and deposited directly into the vagina of Icelandic ewes. This created the ability for shepherds in the United States tto use semen from the best rams in Iceland on their ewes without the necessity of using a reproductive specialist. The VAI method is extremely gentle for the ewes and when successful is a wonderful way for a farm to upgrade its flock without having to buy in new stock from other farms. In the fall of 2007, my husband Daryl and his father, Willie Gisch, traveled to Minnesota to attend the 3rd seminar on VAI that was presented by Dr. Olafsson over a two day period. That fall, we attempted to artificially inseminate some of our ewes with the VAI method. It was a very interesting experience and actually was quite fun. We set up a paddock area with a young ram next to where our ewes go to get their drinking water. The fencing was cattle panels that allowed the ewes to stand next to the ram and for them to touch noses. Twice a day I would bring the ewes into a smaller catch pen area next to the ram, close the gate, and then put a lead rope on the ram. I walked him around the ewes so he could alert me to which ewe was coming into heat. It was very interesting to observe that when a ewe was in heat, she would actually let me know by her interest in the ram. In fact, one day I had two ewes who basically stuck to each side of the ram and I walked the three of them around! Based on the information obtained at the seminar, we would do the insemination within a time frame that would hopefully allow the ewe to become pregnant with the thawed semen. All of the heat cycles were recorded, as well as the insemination dates. Then 14-17 days later, I would observe whether or not the ewe would act like she was coming back into heat. Some ewes did, so we made the decision to either re-VAI her or to put her in with a ram. As of April 4th, 2008, we had our first VAI lamb born, 145 days after the procedure was done. We have a wonderful ram lamb out of Iceland ram, Dreitill. Time will tell soon, how many of our other attempts were successful. |
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