The NYTimes Business Section is Covering Bull Semen!?

This article is not my fault. It is in the NYTimes Business Section; therefore, this constitutes real news that I have to report, dammit. It just happens that the real news is about bull semen.

I love the title.

Farmers Use Bull Semen to Inseminate Cows

The article is about artificial insemination, but the title seems to imply surprise that they would use bull semen. What else are they supposed to use? Glitter. Frozen yogurt. Hopes and dreams.

Hopes and dreams don't make new cows, my friend. Only bull semen can.

It goes on to this rather astonishing paragraph:

The number of units of dairy bull semen sold within the nation has increased more than 39 percent and exports have risen nearly 20 percent from 1995 to 2005. For beef bull semen, domestic sales increased nearly 28 percent and exports rose nearly 15 percent.

Doak said U.S. farmers spent about $225 million last year on bull semen. Exports totaled about $56.4 million, although Doak said they are leveling off as foreign countries produce more bulls with good genetics.

Depending on the farmers' budget -- a semen unit generally ranges in price from a couple dollars to $50 -- they choose from bulls depending on the traits they produce. Those include fertility, milk production, butter fat production and protein content of milk.

Did you know that bull semen was sold in units? I guess I expected it to have some more exotic measurement like hogsheads or stone or whippersnappers. Also, who knew the stuff is that expensive. It is like more expensive than champagne -- at least the stuff I drink. (Hey buddy, don't scoff at my champagne. At least it isn't Mad Dog 20/20.)

We continue our story:

About 95 percent of the dairy bull semen companies own or lease the bulls and collect the semen and market it, said Doak, whose 25-member association is based in Columbia, Mo. The others have bull owners bring the animals to the company's facility, where the semen is collected. The farmer either takes it home or the company stores it and ships it for the owner.

Just as the females' insemination works minus the male, the males' process is generally without a female.

The bulls are charmed with a teaser animal -- usually a steer -- and semen is collected with a radiator-like hose lined in latex so warm water can go between the hose and the lining.

''It's as natural as what would happen to him if he was just running out in a pasture with a cow,'' Doak said. (Emphasis mine.)

First of all, I don't know what your early sexual experiences were like, but I don't think ones involving radiator-like hoses qualify as natural.

Second, this reminds me of a story. When I was in high school, I went to this big high school science fair in Denver. It was high school so most of the science was pretty fuzzy. Anyway, after the poster session, they had a dinner with a guest speaker. The guest speaker -- I don't remember his name -- was involved in the program to bring Peregrine falcons back from extinction by breeding them in captivity. Being high school students, someone asked how the necessary materials were acquired from the males. Without missing a beat, this guy busts out a prepared slide he has to answer the question -- this guy is on top of the high school male mind. The slide depicts him wearing at hat on top of which a Peregrine male was copulating. Apparently, they needed something that looked like a female, so they made the hat. It was never really explained why he had to wear the hat during.

Back to our story:

Back at B & B Dairy, Schultz said the cows seem to know Ken Montsma, the artificial insemination technician for Accelerated Genetics, one of the insemination companies.

''Kenny comes in and it's like they come and find him,'' Schultz said.

Montsma said it's because they smell his pheromones, molecules known to trigger responses such as defense and sexual arousal in many animals.

Montsma, 43, travels to about 85 farms, toting his cell phone waiting to hear when cows are in heat. He then matches the cow with the bull the farmer previously picked out.

The semen is generally stored frozen at the farms in a liquid nitrogen tank and after it's thawed in 95-degree water, Montsma finds the cow -- which has likely been gated off in a barn.

He then inserts his arm (plastic-gloved to his elbow) into the cow and inserts the semen in her uterus. The cows generally don't make much of a ruckus, other than the occasional moo. Montsma said it takes him an average of 2.1 times to impregnate a cow.

2.1 times. Where's the love? No wonder they only make the occassional moo.

(Hate mail related to the inappropriacy of this article can be addressed to Seed magazine.)