Spermatozoa survival and fertility of Nera black breeder semen extended with carrot juice

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to examine the fertilising ability of layer breeder cock spermatozoa extended with normal saline fortified with varying levels of carrot juice using 10 breeder Bovan Nera cocks. Semen was collected from the cocks, pooled and divided into six portions (treatments). Treatment 1(T_US) was undiluted semen which served as a control, while Treatments 2 (T_NS) and 3 (T_MRS) were diluted at 1:1 with normal saline and modified ringer solution, respectively. Treatments 4 (T_25%CJ), 5 (T5_0%CJ), and 6 (T_75%CJ) were diluted at 1:1 with normal saline fortified with 25%, 50% and 75% carrot juice, respectively, and stored at room temperature (27.0±0.2). Sperm motility and liveability reduced (p<0.05) as time of storage increased. In vivo study was carried out with 70 hens randomly allocated and inseminated with each of the 5 treatments. The fertility among the treatments was 75% (T_NS), 100% (T₂), 60% (T₃), and 83.33% (T₄), while optimum of 60% at day 3 and 50% at day 7 were obtained for T₃ and T₅ respectively. Duration of fertile period was prolonged by carrot juice for T_50%CJ and T_75%CJ respectively by 2 and 3 days relative to T_NS and 5-6 days for T_MRS. Embryonic mortality and hatchability were similar among the treatments