The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

2.4 million units of what?

Toystory, a Holstein bull with surprising stamina, died in November. Toystory was

...a titan of artificial insemination who sired an estimated 500,000 offspring in more than 50 countries.

Over nearly a decade, Toystory shattered the record for sales of the slender straws that hold about 1/20th of a teaspoon and are shipped using liquid nitrogen to farmers around the world. A unit fetches anywhere from a few dollars to several hundred.

When he died on Thanksgiving Day, Toystory had surpassed 2.4 million units according to his owner, Genex Cooperative Inc., and had fans from Brazil to Japan. His prowess was celebrated on hats, T-shirts and even his own commemorative semen straws. Recent posts to the Facebook page of Genex included “He was legend” and “Torazo!”—Spanish for super bull.

Nowhere in the Journal article does the author mention how many units are in an average donation. For that we go to Wikipedia, which suggests that a single bull-pull can produce a few hundred to several thousand units. (The article also describes the methods of collection.)

So, hat's off to Toystory, a stud in the truest sense of the word.

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