“On our Blonde d’Aquitaine farm, we’re relying on sexed semen to have more females and reorganize the calving periods”

At Gaec des Blondes, in the Ardennes, Amélie Legroux and Sébastien Duant raise around one hundred Blonde d’Aquitaine cows and their offspring in a cow-calf-to-finish system. The males are raised as young bulls, while the heifers are either kept for replacement or sold directlyin crates; approximately 25 animals are sold in crates per year, heifers or young cows under 6 years old.

The couple manages two calving periods: calving : one main period, between September and December, when 80% of the cows calve, after being inseminated. Another in the spring, between March and June, for the remaining 20%, with the bull. “We would like to eliminate spring calving”, the livestock farmers explain.

“The best thing would be to have calvings from 15 September to 15 November; it would be intense, but then it would be over. And when you’re in the thick of it, you’re in the thick of it,” Amélie Legroux explains.

Calmer autumn calves

The livestock farmers see advantages to autumn calvings: interventions on young calves, and above all, calves that are easier to handle, for breeders for whom a calm temperament is an important selection criterion. “We’re with the autumn calves all the time, says Amélie Legroux. At weaning, I spend at least thirty minutes with the young beef cattle in the morning and evening. I sit down and stay there.” Then the farmer gets a bucket of pellets to follow the forty young beef cattle. “I become their point of reference; I know them all. After that, it’s easier to manage changes of pasture in our system of rotational grazing, but also to inseminate them. It’s a gain over their entire career”, adds the farmer.

Eliminating spring calving is also a way for farmers to stop using bulls. “We have had setbacks in the past with bulls that lowered the herd’s indexes, particularly milk production. The calves did not grow well. We prefer to use AI”, explains Amélie Legroux.

The problem is that, for now, the farmers have not been able to increase the number of autumn calvings. So last year, they decided to implement a new strategy: use some sexed semen to obtain more females during autumn calvings and, ultimately, more females to breed for this period.

“Today, we are suffering from not having enough females; we lack the flexibility to meet our objectives”, say Sébastien Duant and Amélie Legroux.

40 heifers and cows inseminated with sexed semen

Forty sexed doses were used, on almost all the heifers, and a few cows. When they came back into heat, the pair switched to conventional semen, both because of the cost—sexed semen is about twice as expensive as conventional semen—and to avoid losing time, because their period of reproduction is tight.

Unfortunately, the results did not live up to the couple’s hopes. After the 40 inseminations With sexed semen, only 14 females were carrying a calf. A figure below the 50% success rate generally observed.

“It must be said that this winter was a little unusual, Sébastien Duant explains. The cows had lice, and we didn’t realize it right away. They were overlapping, and we thought they were in heat, but it is likely that some were simply trying to scratch themselves, which may explain failures of the first inseminations, and therefore, of the sexed semen. »

Breeders also wonder whether the FCO, which hit them hard in 2024, has not yet had repercussions on the 2025-2026 insemination campaign.

Despite this setback, the couple is not giving up and plans to try again next year. “We also work with a veterinarian-advice to identify any practices that could be improved”, says Amélie Legroux. Management of parasitism, calving preparation or breeding preparation, nothing is overlooked.

Pass on a good herd

What if managing calving periods is the main reason for using female sexed semen, there is another one: having more choices for the renewal of the herd. “For me, the more females you have, the more you want to have cows, explains Sébastien Duant. One of our daughters wants to settle down. We want to pass on a calm herd with good genetic potential ; so that she can then make her own choices when renewing the herd.”

The 14 cows successfully inseminated with sexed semen are expected to give birth to 90% heifers, an initial step to build on in the coming years.