21.02.2019
Fabrice Simon is head of the breeding center at the Haras de la Brosse (stud farm in Normandy), not far from the IMV Technologies headquarters. The AI center was founded over 30 years ago.
Fabrice and his team collect fresh semen from eight stallions four times a week from mid-February to mid-July.
During the winter, they are able to freeze the semen they collect, since they have a quarantine area for stallions. This allows them to export semen to countries such as the USA, Canada, Scandinavia, Italy and Germany.
This stud has seen the births of many trotting champions. Their world-famous stallion, “Love You” who is now 18 years old, is the father of the horse that won the 2019 Prix d’Amérique “Bellina Josselyn”, and of the horse coming in second in the Prix de France 2019 “Uza Josselyn”. He is also the grandfather of “Bold Eagle” who won the American Award twice.
“We use IMV products daily: from collection equipment (vaginas and liners) to insemination equipment (range of INRA media, catheters and syringes), as well as laboratory and protective equipment (Polysem gloves), and this for more than 30 years, since our first stallion is now 34 years old.
We used the INRA 82 medium to begin with and we have been users of the INRA 96 medium since it was put on the market. INRA 96 is the only medium I know, to have passed as many reliable tests. Many serious studies were carried out before it was put on the market; it is a safe, effective and easy-to-use product, which is marketed all over the world. In addition, like the INRA Freeze, its specifications meet the sanitary requirements to export semen from a vast amount of countries. Administrative procedures are therefore simplified
Thanks to INRA 96, we can optimize our doses, since we do not always know the number of doses we will need in a day. We can very well begin to inseminate 25-30 mares with the semen of the best stallions, then, if we must carry out an insemination an hour and a half later, the semen is still exploitable.
With a quick calculation, we can estimate that over the last ten years, about 3,500 foals were born at de la Brosse stud farm with INRA 96. This is excluding those who were born all over the world using frozen semen, which we export thanks to INRA Freeze.
There are other good media on the market, but we find that the survival of the spermatozoa in semen is better, when using INRA 96.
In terms of protection, we mainly use the Polysem Polytactyl glove for collecting semen and foaling. It is soft and thin, so very precise for the acts that we do.
We chose IMV products for one main reason: proximity and therefore responsiveness. When we have the least concern in our process, the different teams of the group are there to help us quickly. Sales administration and customer service are very responsive, which is essential in our business. ”
