Genetics Australia

I had the opportunity to visit Genetics Australia on Friday morning with the dairy science class. It's just a short 1.5 hours away from the city centre. I had to wake up at 630am because I had to reach uni by 730am.

The uni hired a small van/bus to bring us there coz there're so few masters students.

View of the city from the freeway. You can vaguely see the city behind the complicated mass of wiring and fencing.

The grand entrance of Genetics Australia. The purpose of this visit is actually to see the process of insemination of cows to create cows of superior breed which produce more milk with good quantities of proteins and fats. This place doesn't deal with any other kinds of genetics stuff like GMO and plant based things. Strictly cows for dairy purposes only. So basically it's quite a small facility but the land is big coz they rear the bulls to get their sperm for analysis.

Suburban Australia is a very nice place to be. Very green and the sky is always bright blue and clear. The air is very fresh as well. But the bad side is that it's always much colder in suburbs compared to the city and the weather is more erratic, can suddenly rain when the sky is so bright. Good example is that day on Friday, with such clear blue skies, it suddenly poured like mad.

Resulted in this mini rainbow. The rainbow was actually really vibrant but I think my camera phone couldn't capture the essence of it. Forgot my camera in the midst of morning rush. :P

We had a short presentation by the manager of the lab. He then told us that we could go see how they "collected" the bull sperm, and he said that if we're not comfortable seeing the process we can be excused. hahaha.. Basically we're just seeing cow masturbation. I'm not kidding! They have the tools ready for it. But of couse it doesn't involve any cow porn.

This is the cow shed. The bulls are kept here when they're not forraging for food on the grass fields. Those big bulls tied to the front are erm.. sort of castrated bulls. They are tied there so that the other bulls can climb on them when they get an erection. So they're sort of there just to be ridden. But of coz they don't get penetrated, I'll explain later. They're just like.. something to be climbed on.

The picture again is not very clear. This is what happens when the bull gets.. horny? He mounts the poor stationary castrated bull and the guy at the side collects his sperm with an artificial vagina. hahaha! Cow sex toys! It happens damn fast! Like 30 seconds then the bull ejaculated d. The manager realised our astonishment and he said that generally the mounting process is as good a foreplay for bulls already and there's no passion or whatsoever involved, very straight forward process. hahaha..

This is the artificial vagina. That knob is where you put in warm water for some reason which I can't recall now. Thank goodness I don't have to write a report on this trip.

This is the tube where the sperm will be collected. His thumb marks the spot of the average amount of sperm which can be collected with each bull. This amount of sperm can inseminate almost 100s of cows.

The sperm samples are then sent for analysis. They count the number of viable sperms and the dead ones and then judge if the bull contributes to good quality sperm or not. Bulls that don't or are too old to do it so many times a day are disposed off. To where do they get disposed off we asked? He replied, I'm sure you all enjoy McDonalds............... -_-

This is to observe the movement of the sperm. He says that some sperm dart forward quickly which is good. Some just dart around in circles which is practically useless.. Somehow puts the image of a dog chasing its own tail in my mind. hahaha..

The sperm is then "packaged" into these very fine looking straws labelled with the name of the bull. They actually sell the sperm in these straws to farmers and also to international markets. Malaysia is one of them.

The straws have to be frozen immediately using liquid nitrogen to ensure "freshness" :P

That's about the field trip. Definitely an eye opener! Btw, those people handling the bulls actually had to take a cow psychology course so that they know when and how to handle them when they're aroused. This is the first of my many field trips this sem.

Alright, back to my wine assignment......