Year: 1953
Type: article
Abstract: tia Agric~dt~lral Experiment Station, State CoIleaeAlthough much attention has been given to the improvement of semen diluters during the past decade, the egg yolk-buffer diluter developed by Phillips and Lardy (5) in 1940 still provides the basic medium for diluting bull spermatozoa in routine artificial breeding operations.They tested the livability of bull spermatozoa in evaporated milk also and were able to obtain fair motility survival for 48 hours, but after 72 hours all of the spermatozoa were immotile.In 1942 Underbjerg et al. (7) compared undiluted semen to semen diluted with autoclaved milk or egg yolk-phosphate and concluded that the diluters had little beneficial effect on fertility.The first promising report concerning the possible use of boiled cow's milk as a diluting fluid for bull semen came from Czechoslovakia in ]950.Michajilov (3) suggested that fresh, clean milk from a healthy cow might be used as a diluter for bull semen after it had been boiled, filtered, and cooled.He stated that a dilution rate of one part semen to 25 parts boiled milk had been used successfully.The recent favorable report by Thacker and Almquist (6) showed that boiled homogenized milk and boiled pasteurized skimmilk would support motility of bull spermatozoa for a satisfactory period of time, although motility survival was very poor in the same milks which had not been boiled.Field trials using boiled homogenized milk containing no antibiotics gave fertility results slightly higher than those obtained with yolk-citrate diluter containing penicillin and streptomycin (1, 2).Although the use of egg yolk diluters has increased the life span of bull spermatozoa so that diluted semen can be stored and used with good fertility results for several days, nevertheless these diluters have several limitations.Eggs are rather expensive and their handling in the preparation of the diluter is both laborious and time-consuming.The investigation reported herein was initiated to study the livability and fertility of bull spermatozoa in boiled milks.Favorable results, if obtained, would make possible a more economical, more easily prepared, and thus more practical diluter for bull semen. EXPERIMENTALA preliminary study involving 11 ejaculates diluted at the rate of one part semen to 50 parts diluter showed that bovine spermatozoa could maintain Received for publication Sept.
Source: Journal of Dairy Science
Authors: D.L. Thacker, J.O. Almquist
Institution: Pennsylvania State University
Language: English
Subfield: Reproductive Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2005194149