It then became a race against time to get the semen to its destination within three days, after which it starts to lose its integrity.
LIC responded by driving the 70,000 straws to Auckland Airport to catch an Air New Zealand domestic flight to Dunedin.
However, that flight was cancelled, meaning it then had to fly to Christchurch, where it arrived in the city later that evening.
LIC staff then drove the straws to Dunedin and other towns in the South Island for delivery to farms by 6am on Sunday.
The flight was the first time LIC had chartered a plane to deliver fresh semen to South Island dairy farmers and set off from Auckland on October 31.
The shipment is just one of many LIC will be making as its team works to impregnate four million cows over the coming months.
The 12cm long straws are stored in secure chilly bins as cargo during the flight with care and speed of delivery critical to maintaining the semen’s integrity.
Once on the ground, the delivery of straws will be quickly distributed by LIC’s artificial breeding logistics teams to artificial breeding technicians who will be on-farm within days to inseminate cows for dairy farmers as part of their mating plans.
LIC’s general manager of NZ Markets Malcolm Ellis says the shipment marked an exciting milestone because it was the biggest individual consignment to date to the South Island by LIC.
“We’re seeing strong demand across our AB product options this year. Our delivery of fresh semen via our powerful Premier Sires teams continues to be a defining contributor of genetic merit to the national herd,” he says.
“This year, we are particularly experiencing phenomenal growth in the area of fresh sexed semen which delivers a 90% chance of producing a heifer calf, enabling farmers to target valuable heifer replacements from their most productive cows, ensuring the rate of genetic gain within their dairy herds is optimised.”
It’s exciting to see the scale of this delivery taking place and ensuring the continuation of our incredible national dairy herd supported by committed and passionate farmers.”
The flight also supports other traditional air and land transport options the cooperative is currently using to transport fresh semen quickly.
The process then starts again with LIC’s artificial breeding technicians’ inseminated over cows across the country, resulting in around $300 million in genetic gain.
A similar volume of 2019 inseminations are expected for 2020, as cow efficiency and production increases/ but herd numbers remain stable.
