The semen characteristics of pubertal West African dwarf bucks
2012
Gabriel N. Egbunike | Immanuel I. Bitto
Semen was collected twice weekly between 0800 and 0900 hours from 6 healthy pubertal West AfricanDwarf (WAD) bucks for three months by electrical stimulation, and later evaluated and compared with valuesfrom healthy adult bucks of the same breed. Apart from semen colour, which was similar between pubertaland adult bucks, adult bucks were significantly superior (p < 0.05) to pubertal bucks in semen volume, massactivity, sperm progressive motility, sperm concentration, live sperm, total sperm/ejaculate and normal spermmorphology. In addition, pubertal buck semen also had significantly higher (p < 0.05) incidences of abnormaland dead spermatozoa. The incidence of coiled tails was however similar (p > 0.05) between the two agegroups. The sperm concentration in the pubertal buck was highly significantly and positively correlated withtotal sperm/ejaculate (r = 0.72; p < 0.001), while semen volume was significantly but negatively related to thetotal sperm/ejaculate (r = -0.37; p < 0.05). Based on the findings of this study, it is concluded that pubertalbuck semen, though inferior in quantity and quality to that of the adult, may be sparingly used for AI, and thatgood sires may be selected at puberty on the basis of the physical characteristics of their semen.
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