Wool Production And Technology Department, Desert Research Center, Mataria, Cairo, Egypt. | ||
| Journal of Animal and Poultry Production | ||
| Article 4, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2005, Pages 143-157 PDF (663.36 K) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/jappmu.2005.237950 | ||
| Author | ||
| F. S. A. Ismail, | ||
| Department of Poultry Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Mansoura University, Egypt. | ||
| Abstract | ||
| An experiment was carried out to investigate the effects of dietary crude protein level [16 (control), 18 and 20%] and frequency of ejaculation (1, 2, 3 and 7 ejaculates/week) on physical characteristics of semen of New Zealand White (NZW) rabbit bucks under summer conditions in Egypt. Semen quality was assessed by ejaculate volume (EV), sperm concentration (SC), percentages of mass (MM) and progressive motility (PM), percentages of abnormal (AS) and dead sperms (DS), and total output, normal, live and motile sperms. Blood sampling was also performed to determine the concentrations of plasma total protein, albumin, testosterone and creatinine, and, activities of plasma alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST). The obtained results revealed that, EV, SC, percentages of MM and PM, and total output, normal, live and motile sperms were significantly increased, while percentages of AS and DS were decreased with elevating the level of dietary CP to 20%. On the other hand, no significant differences were detected in the aforementioned characteristics of rabbit bucks’ semen due to increasing the dietary CP level from 16 to 18% except MM and DS were significantly improved. As for the effect of ejaculation frequency, it was observed that, EV, SC, percentages of MM and PM, and total output, normal, live and motile sperms were significantly reduced, while percentage of AS was markedly increased when number of ejaculates reached 7 times per week. Regarding the effect of dietary CP level on blood parameters; no significant differences were found in concentrations of plasma globulin and creatinine, or activities of plasma ALT and AST, whereas values of plasma total protein, albumin, and testosterone were significantly increased with elevating dietary CP level from 16 to 18 or 20%. The effects of dietary CP level and ejaculation frequency on semen quality were not interrelated. It can be concluded that; under summer conditions in Egypt, NZW rabbit bucks can be used for mating or semen collection 3 times per week with no detrimental effects on semen characteristics, and fed on a 20%-CP diet in order to get semen of a good quality. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Rabbits; semen quality; dietary protein and frequency of ejaculation | ||
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