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Artificial insemination has several advantages, but it still can be time-consuming. (Sonya: Real sex often takes only seconds!) One Illinois operation has developed a product thats saving workers time when inseminating sows. (Sonya: Shouldn't they be inseminating their wives instead?) |
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Pat and Mike Dumoulin, of Hampshire, Ill., came up with a device they call EZ Mate. (Sonya: Sounds like a Gay Australian!) Its a belt-like apparatus that holds semen containers and catheters to allow natural uptake of semen by the sow. (Sonya - Natural!? It would take a MAN to invent anything so hideous!) |
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The Dumoulin brothers run a 525-sow, farrow-to-finish confinement operation with their father, Bill, and their brother-in-law, Bill Goad. They switched to total A.I. breeding 18 months ago. But they wanted to reduce the amount of time A.I. was taking. We could only inseminate one sow at a time, Mike says. (Sonya: If Mike, Pat, Bill and Bill had real girlfriends, they wouldn't all be trying to pork the same sow at the same time!) Inseminating a sow the right way took us about eight minutes. (Sonya: That means only two minutes per guy, no wonder they don't have girlfriends!) We wanted to find a way to speed things up a bit. (Sonya: What's the hurry, Big Boys, that sow isn't going anywhere!) |
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Their solution was to develop the EZ Mate. (Sonya: Talk about a solution insearch of a problem!) The device wraps around the sows belly and attaches with Velcro straps. A strap on the back holds the catheter up. Mike says its easy to use, lightweight and washable. (Sonya: Did Mike ask the sow how easy it is to use? I bet she has the dickens of a time dressing up in that thing, much less having to wash it afterwards!) |
It may actually aid in sow stimulation, Mike says. (Sonya: Like Mike knows whether the sow is faking it or not!) It simulates the boar to some degree. (Sonya: Get a life, Mike! You simulate a boar!) |
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The Dumoulins are happy with the device. (Sonya: It sure beats Betsy the Blow-Up doll who sprung a leak when they got done plowing her south forty!) It frees up both hands to apply back pressure to the sow, fill out records or do other tasks. (Sonya: They call filling out records foreplay? No wonder the sows are faking orgasms!) One worker can inseminate three sows at a time. (Sonya: Is that with or without his friend EZ-Mate?) |
In field trials at International Genetics, use of the EZ Mate reduced the time it took to inseminate sows by nearly 20 percent. The Dumoulins say theyve cut 30 percent from their insemination time. (Sonya: The Henry Ford's of pig porking!) |
It also eliminates the temptation to hurry and force the semen in by squeezing the bottle, Mike says. (Sonya: Is that what farm boys call it, squeezing the bottle? What happened to choking the chicken? Draining the lizard?) It allows the sow to take the semen in. |
THANKS FOR SHARING WITH US MIKE, WE'LL REMEMBER YOU THE NEXT TIME WE ORDER PIGS IN A BLANKET