The EEJ technique involves inserting an electrified probe directly into the bull’s anus, and sending electric pulses into it. The bull, meanwhile, is restrained in a metal cage known as a 'crush'.
JOHN LEWIS-STEMPEL: As crimes go, it took balls. Just before Christmas, thieves stole 60 containers of bull sperm from a farm in Olfen, a small town near Cologne, Germany. You might wonder what you do with litres of bovine ejaculate. Well, bull semen from premium pedigree bulls can be worth its weight in gold. Literally. Hence its agricultural nickname, “white gold”… The bull sperm market is bullish thanks to the widespread practice of artificial insemination. More than 75% of all dairy cattle breeding in the UK is done via this consistent method, which allows cows to be impregnated with the juice of a tried and trusted sire…
A stud bull will have its semen extracted twice a day, three or four times a week, and deposit, on average, 5-8ml of semen. One British Charolais bull is on record for producing £800,000 worth of semen a month… Britain’s biggest bovine semen producer is Cogent, which began life on the Duke of Westminster’s Eaton Estate in Cheshire, but is now part of Texas-based STGenetics. With more than 100 bulls at stud, Cogent, like URUS, sells worldwide. Bull semen production is increasingly a multinational enterprise, a cross-borders commerce…
If you think the money involved in bull semen is eye-watering, wait until you hear how the semen is collected in the first place. In the good old days, the bull mounted the cow, and the semen was extracted with a spoon or syringe. (Been there, done that: I am a traditional farmer.) These days, the methods are increasingly unnatural and cruel. The cow is replaced by a “teaser cow” — usually a castrated male, or a wooden dummy. To stimulate the bull, stud farms often employ techniques, such as a ransrectal massage (TRM), which can be very painful for the creature — but not as painful as electroejaculation (EEJ). This technique, in use since 1936, involves inserting a 75-90mm-wide electrified probe directly into the bull’s anus, and sending pulses of between 8 and 16 volts into it. The bull, meanwhile, is restrained in a metal cage known as a “crush”.
No one who has witnessed the process of EEJ could deny that it causes the bulls pain. They bellow (“vocalisation” in the euphemism of theriogenology, the veterinary science of reproduction) and the back legs may give way. Under the skin, there are increases in plasma cortisol, progesterone and heart rate — all signifiers of distress. As one recent scientific volume aimed at the industry, Reproductive Technologies in Animals, put it: “Obviously, EEJ is regarded as a stressful and painful procedure, which may negatively affect animal welfare.” Obviously. Yet it is standardly practised throughout the world…
All this is part of a bleak wider trend. The more agriculture industrialises, the more it seemingly becomes inured to casual cruelty towards farm animals. Our dwindling ethical standards are partly down to agriculture’s removal from the grass roots, and partly down to money. Both extreme poverty and extreme wealth in farming tend to produce harshness towards “dumb beasts”… The argument for modern methods of collecting bull semen is that the “elite” cows produced will give humanity more beef, more milk. But ends do not justify means, and, anyway, the cruelties of commercial bull semen production are petrol for the flames of veganism. SOURCE…
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