Unexpected empirical dependence of calf gender on insemination time: system-based explanation

To improve the efficiency of artificial insemination, farmers equip cows with sensors, based on which a computer system determines the cow’s insemination window. Analysis of the resulting calves showed an unexpected dependence of the calf’s gender on the insemination time: cows inseminated earlier in their window mostly gave birth to female calves, while cows inseminated later in their window mostly gave birth to males. In this paper, we provide a general system-based explanation for this phenomenon. 1 Formulation of the Problem Unexpected empirical fact. Computer-based systems are ubiquitous. For example, farmers use sensors to identify cows in heat – they then apply artificial insemination to these particular cows, thus guaranteeing that all the inseminated cows will become pregnant. When analyzing the results of applying this technique, researchers found out an unexpected phenomenon – that the gender of the resulting calves depends on the insemination time: • for cows inseminated at the very beginning of their sixteen-hour insemination window, most resulting calves are female (to be more precise, about 70%); while