50k doses of semen & counting: Meet UP’s elite breeder bull

Having contributed over 50,000 doses of semen, Gorakh, the lone Gangatiri bull at the Uttar Pradesh government’s Hapur farm, has emerged a pioneer in the conservation and propagation of high quality Gangatiri germplasm in UP.
Gangatiri (Hindi for Ganga banks) is a dual-purpose indigenous breed native to eastern UP & western parts of Bihar. The breed, resistant to a lot of diseases and also economical, has high adaptability to the region and lesser input cost.
A Gangatiri cow weighs about 300-350 kg and yields 8-10 litres of milk every day.The genetically improved breed, however, may have a higher yield. The breed was registered by National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR) in 2015.
Born on Jan 29, 2014, Gorakh has his parentage verified and that’s what made him qualify as the donor for production of sexed semen (in which 90% Y chromosomes are removed) for Gangatiri breed of cows in the state. The two female Gangatiri calves, which were born at the govt’s Varanasi farm on March 26 and March 27, using embryo transfer technology and IVF for Gangatiri cows for the first time in the country, are Gorakh’s progenies. The bull produces over 2200 doses of semen every month.
Having a specific ID number, 287020, Gorakh will go strong for at least three more years, says his record. He was born at a gaushala in Mirzapur to Rahu and Pinki, both of whom were elite cows themselves. His induction at the Hapur farm took place in Jan 2015, when he was only a year old. His training for semen collection programme started in August 2019 and two months later, the farm started collecting his semen.
Considering that bulls become sexually productive mostly by age of three and may go on to be productive for minimum for up to eight years of age and maximum for up to 15 years or even 18 years, as has been seen in a few cases, Gorakh may have a lot left in him still to give to the programme that he is already contributing to, especially when his record says that he is a bull with good libido and good quality semen.
As far as his temperament is concerned, his keepers call him gentle. If Gorakh has been able to donate over 50,000 doses of semen till now, it’s because he has been on a herbal libido enhancer and a balanced diet. His daily diet comprises 7.5 kg of balanced concentrate with 12 kg dry fodder and premix of vitamins, minerals and probiotics. His exercise regimen is also strict and regular to keep him healthy and fit. The farm spends around Rs30,000 on his upkeep every month.
It is a tough scan that a bull goes through to qualify as a sperm donor. The first stage is rearing. Many bulls get ousted at this very stage as they may not match the physical standards, or their sperm concentration may be low. The second is the training stage, where the bulls are trained to ejaculate with dummy partners present around to stimulate them. It is the final stage, the collection stage, in which the bull starts donating sperm.
There are standards defined for the collection stage as well. The sperm count should be at least 500million per ml of semen for the bull to qualify as the donor. Each ejaculation gives 3-4ml of semen. Gorakh may have already matched the minimum standards to emerge as the pioneer sperm donor for Gangatiri cows. At present, he is the only male contributor to the programme. Officials said that there was one more male, but he died a few years ago.
Dr Neeraj Gupta, CEO, UP Livestock Development Board, said, “There are norms defined for every stage. Each stage is monitored by experts. The collection is done scientifically and under the supervision of the experts.”
The dummy partners for Gorakh are other male bulls, who are given an artificial vagina, which has a standard temperature of 37 degrees C to provide natural warmth to the male during ejaculation. Gorakh would mount the dummy partners each time he issexually stimulated. The process is done in the presence of experts and it has to be a swift collection of semen. The sperm is flushed twice a week, if done more, the semen quality might deteriorate. Every time the semen is flushed, it gives at least 200 doses, which is 400 doses in a week. Going by the standards, 2 lakh doses of semen may be taken from a bull in its lifetime.
Gorakh is ten years but fit to go long. When embryo transfer technology (ETT) and IVF were used to produce Gangatiri cows for the first time in the country, at UP’s Varanasi farm, in July-August 2023, four elite females at the farm were selected as the egg donors, after their records of lactation and parentage were verified. The sexed semen from Gorakh was used to fertilize the eggs in-vivo (inside the body).
Later, after about seven days, the embryos were flushed from the donor cows and transferred into four recipient cows, who may not have been of high merit for being merely the surrogate. At the end, because only two pregnancies were successful, two calves were born.
The ETT is being extensively used for improvement of indigenous cow breeds at various places as elite cows are used as egg and sperm donors. The standard gestation period for cows is over nine months. Going by that standard, one female may produce one calf in a year, mostly. Through ETT, an elite cow can produce multiple progenies in a year. Ravinder, principal secretary, animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries, said, “In the current booming era of Artificial Intelligence, future strategy and better planning on artificial insemination (AI) will bring significant improvement in the entire livestock herd and reduce the risk of financial insecurity of farmers from unpredictable loss of agriculture returns. In the near future, the calf born through AI with elite genetics is going to pay a premium to farmers as predictive analytics can be made much before the progeny comes into production.”