Points Unknown Semen Analysis

Oken goes away with the coveted Mr. M squared title

What a catchy title for this post...... We spent the morning with Ilo, Phoenix and Oken at the Inver Grove Heights Animal Hospital which is known for its quality reproduction department. With donations that came in for the recent litter of puppies that were placed in Hedlund Husky Preservation Project homes, we had enough to have semen extracted from three of our Hedlund Husky males to be used at some point when they may not be able to produce such samples live.

When freezing semen, the sample is tested for two very important things. Motility is the first and it simply means "how well the little guys move and how fast". The second test is for the Morphology which, when plainly stated, means the "quality" of the sperm. A normal morphology is anything at or above 80%.

Here where our stats!

Ilo is a 3/4 Hedlund Husky with 1/4 Joe Redington Sr Alaskan Husky lineage. He was born in December of 2003. His sperm count was 690 MILLION with an EXCELLENT motility and a morphology of 90%. He produced FOUR breeding units for our program.

Phoenix is Ilo's son and is a deep line Hedlund Husky. He was born in November of 2005. His sperm count was 1.2 BILLION (that's with a B) with a GOOD motility and a morphology of 86%. He produced SIX breeding units for our program.

Oken is half Hedlund Husky and half  Points Unknown Zulu lineage. He was born in September of 2007. His sperm count was 800 MILLION with an EXCELLENT motility and a morphology of 95%. He produced FIVE breeding units for our program.

How do they count the sperm, you ask? They actually have a machine that does this! Really!

So the breeding units produced today from these strapping motile males join the NINE breeding units left by our very own McKenzie. He was eight years old when he provided his sample. He also had a little more help than our boys today. Zala was in heat at the time and she came along for the ride which apparently can as much as double the number of breeding units. Had I known this before taking the boys, I would have taken them last week with Illy! We did get a good number of breeding units, nonetheless, to help further our efforts and provide us with what could have been lost genetics had we not banked them now. 

The boys went away from their experience with a proud smile, certainly considering what good they had done this morning for the project. They took the opportunity to nap on the long car ride home. Once home, they each ate a big meal. They are now, once again, napping.