Looking to import semen from an EU country and wondered what options were recommended. Is it more cost effective to let country where semen is stored to export to uk or arrange for a uk company to arrange shipment. Also regarding successful ai treatments, who comes with high recommendations for success? Thanks

I looked at AI (which has very poor success rate for our breed here in UK) looking at primarily trying fresh chilled (higher success rate and whet they tend to use in other countries where distance is an issue like USA/Australia), but it is more cost effective and successful to travel to the stud if it's only an EU country. 

Lots of red tape with AI, licensing from DEFRA (donor has to be Pet passport compliant, which is easier now) where it's to be held as well as paying for their vets your vet the insemination etc.

I have imported semen twice from Sweden to two different fertility clinics in the UK.  Chilled does have a better success rate but only if everything goes to plan which in my case and a friend who done it a few months before me it didn't.  Both times it took a day longer than it should have and if it is left sitting in depots or vans and the temp starts to raise at all then then the quality drops very quickly.  The semen was 93% excellent in Sweden and was down to 50% by the time we got to use it which could still work but obviously not what you want.  I used Innovis but would use Fit and Fertile if I was ever going down that road again as he seems to get better results

So did the chilled fail or succeed?

When I imported from Australia I organised shipping using an Australian based company ( email is invaluable ! ) Had organised import licence from DEFRA and sent via scanned copy to shipping company. Import went without hitch.
Could you not drive over ... Much more likely to be successful ?

In my case and my friend chilled failed.  I have not heard of any imported chilled semen being successful in my breed.  I have heard of a few frozen being successful and some from dogs that passed away years ago so frozen 20 years ago when I would have thought procedures would not have been of as high a standard as they are now but it looks as though in the UK the canine fertility clinics have not moved on and improved much at all.
I know in some European countries chilled used with TCI has good results and fresh semen TCI when you have dog and bitch  on premises has as good if not better than a natural mating.

Its frozen we are planning to use. Have heard a vet in Cambridge is very good

I have a litter of 8 pups now 4 week old pups from frozen. I used Fit n Fertile :)

Was it Keith or Shaun?

Keith. A friend travelled with the semen for me as she was coming here for a show so I didnt have to deal with a shipping company.

I tried to weigh up all the pros and cons, but in the end am opting for a 2500 mile round trip to Poland with my bitch. Fingers crossed I am making the right choice :-)

Fingers crossed, you don't need an interpreter do you LOL

Which part of Poland, my family are all in the tri city of Gdansk area.

Brainless,, that would be brilliant :-)

We will be heading for Bobrowniki, near Bytom?

Well send me anything you need translating or whatever, or PM me and I'll let you have my contact details

Brainless, you are a star :-) :-) :-)!!!!

As it turned out all the paperwork was presented in Polish and English so that was all okay...and madam has just come into season today--nearly 2 months late! So it's panic stations now :-)!

"Could you not drive over ... Much more likely to be successful ?"

Totally agree!!

but in the end am opting for a 2500 mile round trip to Poland with my bitch.    Horrendous distance but probably the best plan...... and I thought driving down from Toronto to Phili was a trip (12 hours).  Still it sounds like a great opportunity for a holiday with hopefully a nice litter to partly fund all this at the end?

Ditto, in my breed there have only been two successful AI litters in last 40 years and many expensive failures.

I have travelled with my girls abroad twice, flying both times.

First time I didn't have a driver so got a husband ;) , now, but Finland would still ahv3e been rather a trek.

Second time it was the USA.

If it's only Mainland/Western/Eastern Europe then driving really would be a doddle.  In my youth we drove 1000 each way to visit family, imagine parents, me the eldest and four younger brothers all stuffed in a car!  30 hours with a toddler on my lap.

it sounds like a great opportunity for a holiday

LOL!!! A holiday with a free nervous breakdown thrown in, maybe :-)

Just booked my bitch in for progesterone test no 1 this Friday, and hopefully we will go next week--can't quite believe it will happen yet, especially since she has kept us waiting for he first time ever (2 months late...).

On ai, Star, Fit and Fertile doesn't coordinate the importation of straws (I believe), but Angelika von Heimendahl does (the Cambridge vet mentioned above). I think you will find that the cost could outweigh the expense of actually travelling with the bitch, depending on where you are going, and the outcome is unlikely to be as good as you would get with a natural mating.

One thing we did find with a bitch who came over for my boy earlier this summer was that the stress of travel and strange environment did knock her back a bit, so she was mated on days 18 and 20 (whereas previously she was 14 and 16). She whelped a litter of 6 boys and a girl 12 days ago. So I am booking a one way ticked on Eurotunnel to avoid the craziness of trying to meet a schedule or paying over the odds for a flexi-ticket...keep you fingers crossed for us!

On ai, Star, Fit and Fertile doesn't coordinate the importation of straws (I believe)

Fit and Fertile will deal with import and export of straws, I have used them for both.  Super efficient and helpful.

Thanks for that harkback, I could only see reference to export on their website--I stand corrected :-)