Abstract

The cost information of animal breeding is a major concern in the farming system when making management and production system improvement decisions. Moreover, it is important to identify the most important cost positions and perspectives of the production process. This study is, therefore aimed to estimate, identify, and compare the cost contribution and breeding cost of artificial insemination (AI) vs. natural service in sheep production systems using frozen ram semen. Natural service by hand mating was performed to breed the ewes (n = 24) in estrus detected by a teaser ram maintained in a flock of 40 ewes. Artificial insemination was performed in synchronized ewes (n=10) after cervical ripening treatment using intramuscular injection of oxytocin. Breeding and performance costs were estimated by analyzing the cost associated factors. Per head insemination cost and cost per pregnancy in an artificial breeding program (2.80 and 5.59) were higher than natural breeding program (1.40 and 1.77) in sheep production. Ram depreciation cost, feed cost, and maintenance cost-shared the maximum cost in natural breeding, while the frozen semen cost, a special type of eccentric AI pipette cost, and hormone cost provoke the increased cost as the major constraints of the artificial breeding program. Minimizing the constraints and improving efforts in the conception rate of artificial insemination, farmers or producers will be benefited from natural breeding through rapid exploitation of the desired genetics cost-effectively. © 2021. All Rights Reserved.