Highland Semen

When we first decided to have Lord Rannoch’s semen collected at U.K. Sire Services, our plan was to market the straws everywhere but the United Kingdom. Accordingly, we consulted with Gaynor Cumming, the Supervising Veterinary Surgeon at U.K. Sire Services, and planned the necessary tests at the necessary intervals so that Rannoch’s semen could (at least in theory) be shipped anywhere.

Rannoch was quarantined on the farm before he went to Devon, and tested. He was quarantined on arrival at U.K. Sire Services, and tested. And when his semen was being collected, he — and his semen — were tested regularly. He passed all of the tests, and the results are available as a download, along with the relevant DEFRA correspondence.

Now that his semen has been collected, we’ve moved it to Genus in the U.K. for storage. The plan was to move a quantity of straws to a storage facility in the U.S. — we chose Hawkeye Breeders Service in Adel, Iowa — so that American customers could purchase Rannoch’s semen without all the bother of importing it into the States.

Of course, there was no point in this if calves fathered by Rannoch could not be registered in the States. So we began the process of registering Lord Rannoch of Lucies with the American Highland Cattle Association. The first step was being sure that Rannoch was “pure” Highland cattle.

Hamish Wilson at the Highland Cattle Society furnished us with an eight generation pedigree (it’s 65 pages long) — showing that all of Rannoch’s ancestors were fully registered with the Society. If you have a fast modem or broadband, please feel free to download this pedigree. It’s in Acrobat Reader PDF format, and about 1,675 kb in size.

The American Highland Cattle Association also wanted a DNA test. Fortunately, we have some Swiss customers who wanted a DNA test as well. So we’d already been out into the field and had pulled some of Rannoch’s red hair — roots and all, per instructions. Pulling hair from a bull, even a bull with lots of long hair, is not something I’d recommend.

Rannoch’s hair was sent to Weatherbys in Ireland, and their DNA report is available online. The American Highland folks forwarded the Weatherbys report to their DNA lab, and they poured over the eight-generation pedigree. And, hey presto, a few months later Lord Rannoch was duly registered.

A copy of his Certificate of Registration from the American Highland Cattle Association (registration number 41,829 dated March 23, 2005) can be downloaded.

So Rannoch’s offspring in the States, fathered through AI, can now be fully registered with the American Highland Cattle Association. And his straws are in the liquid nitrogen storage containers at Hawkeye, and can be easily shipped (and economically shipped) anywhere in the States.

Easy peasy.