A case of modern day cattle rustling in Kane County?

Police say thieves in Kane County over the weekend swiped $5,000 worth of reproductive components for cattle breeding from a Hampshire-area dairy farm.

The loot - a canister containing bull semen, embryos and liquid nitrogen - was reported stolen Sunday when a farm owner on the 15N600 block of Walker Road returned home from Easter church services to find the items missing from his office.

Lt. Pat Gengler of the Kane County sheriff's office said authorities are looking into whether the theft was related to similar complaints filed recently in southern Wisconsin.

Nope, it wasn't a prank.

"It looks like somebody knew exactly what they were going for," Gengler said.

According to a police, the canister contained semen samples from older, "less common" bulls and was going to be used for breeding purposes next winter.

The thieves apparently entered through an unlocked door, police said, and removed the sample from a storage area.

The incident was similar to recent reports in the Wisconsin counties of Rock and Waushara, where rewards are being offered for information leading to arrests.

"It seems like these could be connected," Gengler said. Dennis Vercler, director of news and communications for the Illinois Farm Bureau, said it might seem unusual to non-farmers, but bull semen and embryos often have a high commercial value and, as such, become theft targets just like diamond rings or tools.

"It's an easy product to steal," he said. "Of course, you have to find a buyer then who's willing to use it and does not question why it's being sold so cheaply."

Vercler said a small sample can be used to impregnate dozens of cows; the better the breed, the more a sample is worth. Liquid nitrogen keeps the materials frozen inside a roughly 2-foot canister until they can be used.

"It's a little canister that's got something in it worth thousands of dollars," Vercler said, adding that they can be difficult to track and recover. "It's not like stealing a cow with a brand on it."

Detective Daria O'Connor of the Rock County, Wis., sheriff's office said a theft there last month deprived one farm of about $20,000 in vials of bull semen. That case is still under investigation.

"The average person wouldn't even know what to do with that or how to find it," she said.

The owner of the Hampshire-area farm declined to comment Wednesday, but other local farmers sympathized. "Nobody wants to hear their fellow farmers got ripped off," said Mike Kenyon, a Kane County Board member and co-owner of the Kenyon Brothers dairy farm in Elgin. "What if somebody came over and started loading up my animals?"