Artificial insemination
Placing semen from a chosen bull into a cow by hand, without natural mating.
Also: insemination, frozen semen, sexed semen
In artificial insemination a trained technician places semen from a selected bull into the cow's reproductive tract at the right point in her cycle. It became practical for cattle in the 1930s and 1940s, and after a way of freezing semen was found around 1950, straws of semen could be stored in liquid nitrogen for decades and sent around the world. One bull can now sire calves in many countries, which speeds up breeding progress but narrows the gene pool if few bulls are used. Most dairy cows in Europe and North America are bred this way. In India, state and cooperative technicians reach village herds, and sexed semen is used to favour female calves.