Course is open to veterinarians and veterinary students, animal scientists and animal science students.

Basic experience in horse reproduction recommended

Enrollment limit: 25

4.5 hours of lectures and 4.5 hours of hands-on labs/day

This course is designed for those who would like to expand their current knowledge and skills in semen processing and oocyte and embryo identification and manipulation. The goal is to provide practitioners with experience in freezing semen and to provide them with a state of the art industry knowledge base.

Topics/labs

Day 1

 Male gamete: Lectures will include current concepts on semen processing (including different freezing methods and processing for cooled shipment) to bring practitioners up to date on field and referral techniques. We will elaborate on how to proceed when one is on the receiving end of frozen semen (thawing protocols, insemination techniques, semen analysis). In addition, disease transmission with frozen/cooled semen, antibiotic use, international frozen semen transport and X/Y sexing will be discussed.

Labs will include semen freezing and processing for cooled shipment. A variety of shipping containers, extenders and freezing protocols will be used.

 Day 2

Female gamete: Lectures will include in vitro maturation, manipulation and fertilization of oocytes. Currently available referral techniques for oocyte transfer, gamete intra fallopian transfer, embryo freezing and applications for ovum pick-up will be discussed, in addition to most recent developments in the embryo transfer field.

Labs will enable participants to manipulate embryos, package embryos for (overnight) transport, to be exposed to embryo transfer methods and to perform embryo transfer procedures.