A management system for frozen bull semen using a radio frequency identification tag

An appropriate traceability system is essential for the credibility of food. In beef marketing in Japan, marbling plays an important role. This economically important trait is mainly determined by the breed (or strain), and the lineage information of semen used for insemination is necessary in commercial beef production. On the other hand, there is the seemingly increasing demand of consumers for a brief description of beef. Under the circumstances, a traceability system covering from semen to meat is required to be established. Recently, a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag that consists of a RFID chip and an antenna has been being used in the field of distribution management. We were trying to rely on a small RFID chip, a 'micro -chip' (mu-chip) with a size of 0.4mm square, to keep frozen semen under better management. The micro-chips (102 in total) were attached to individual semen straws by ultrasonic sealing (chip-attached straw). To retrieve the information about chip-attached straws, chip's attributes were stored in the system database. To examine reliability of the chip, 86 of chip-attached straws were transferred as a fraction of the total to liquid nitrogen of one storage tank (A tank) and the remainder (16) to another storage tank (B tank), and then the straws in A tank were used for insemination as usual. New information from the chip-attached straws used was also stored in the database. 1. The chip worked after thawing out it taken out of liquid nitrogen and even in liquid nitrogen. 2. In one of the nine chip-attached straws that were not used for insemination over one year, the ID number of it could not be retrieved. The cause of the failure was suspected of damage from an erroneous touch somewhere during taking out and back to A tank repeatedly, since all of the chips in B tank worked well over one year. 3. Pregnancy rate was not different for between chip-attached straws and the other straws. The result suggests that the micro-chip may be used for better management of frozen semen.