Highest quality standards in all AI stations.

Our Veterinary Association – an intrinsic part of the overall BHZP breeding programme.

Work at four six BHZP AI centres is conducted according to extremely strict preventative hygiene standards (including exclusion zones around the centres, strict access restrictions, 48-hour quarantine for personnel, black and white separation zones, mandatory showering, changing of clothes, disinfection etc.). The only way to ensure optimum AI quality in compliance with SGD certification is to systematically comply with all biosecurity standards. The same very high standards apply across the board to all our AI centres and ensure a consistently high, premium quality.
Every boar has 6 m² floor space bedded with straw and woodchip. The adjustable dummy sow meets the highest hygiene standards. Spacious, calm semen collection pens and collection vessels preheated to 36° ensure sanitary production,

while the pneumatic tube system ensures rapid delivery to the laboratory: here the semen is prepared and examined by our highly trained and experienced personnel to ensure it conforms to our high standards (microscopic sperm motility testing – minimum 70%, photometric density determination, dyeing). All data are logged in our powerful BHZP AI software program where they remain safely stored and traceable.
Dilution vessels and filling machines guarantee optimal hygiene. Each individual tube is filled, sealed and labelled with utmost care. AI personnel collect retained samples from each ejaculate for subsequent inspections of sperm motility after 24, 48 and 72 hours. The MAS test is an additional safeguard: Monthly inspections of each boar for morphologically abnormal spermatozoa with further testing in suspect cases help to ensure optimum quality. The tubes are packed in sturdy bags and transported by courier vehicles equipped with electronic controlled climate boxes. Useful resources such as the scanner service, on-farm AI training courses, farm support services, reproductive advice and supplies complete the scope of BHZP’s AI service provision.

All internal processes at BHZP are designed to uphold our world-leading quality standards.
Producing world-class genetics in the AI sector requires significant financial resources which have to be recouped through the semen price. The AI market in Germany is a low-cost market in global terms. Germany has lower AI costs than anywhere else.
The VzF reports that German pig producer rings spent €30 per sow per year on AI in the 2015/16 financial year. This works out at €0.86 per live born piglet and €1.01 per weaned piglet. Relative to all extra costs per sow, the expenditure on AI accounts for only 2.4% per sow and year and has remained stable in recent years

€174 was spent on maintaining the herd health, which equates to 5.8 times this amount, while water and energy costs were more than three times higher at €94.
Feed expenditure per sow and year, including piglets, amounted to €780 or 62.4% of overall costs. These figures suggest that it would make more sense to look for potential cost savings in these costly areas rather than in artificial insemination.