Using a rubber band to block the insemination catheter when it does not have a cap on its end

Goal

The idea is to avoid semen backflow when we leave a catheter without its cap inside the sow for some minutes. This trick is used by Fernando Osorio at the Cal Rec farm, located in the province of Barcelona, Spain.

Trick

When the artificial insemination has ended, the bag or bottle are removed, and we bend the tip of the catheter. The rubber rings used for lamb tail docking will keep the catheter bent.

Explanation

A common management technique involves leaving the insemination catheter inside the female once it has absorbed all the semen. Nevertheless, if we do not block the catheter, semen may come out as easily as it came in.

Nobody likes to see how the sow throws out the semen that we have administered her so carefully. Due to this, there are catheters in the market with a cap on its end that avoids backflow, although they are more expensive.

When we use catheters without a cap, an option is to bend the catheter by fastening it to the semen dose container. Nevertheless, the empty container frequently falls down or the empty container can become refilled.