Sexed semen is highly purified sperm which are sex sorted into X bearing chromosome and Y bearing chromosome population. The objective of this review is to update the current status of sperm sexing in cattle.

Flow cytometric sexing of mammalian sperm or cell sorting have been sufficiently accomplished in cattle. One of the current techniques to sex sort sperm at a high level of purity uses a device called a flow-cytometer to detect a 3 to 4% difference in DNA content between male and female sperm and sort them with upwards of 90% purity.

Thus, at an event rate of 20,000 total sperm/sec, nearly 4,000 live sperm/sec of each sex can be sorted simultaneously. The current system can produce approximately 10 to 13x106 live sperm/h of each sex with 85-95% accuracy. According to nearly 7,000 calvings after using sexed semen, 89% the calves were females.