1 GOAT SEMEN COLLECTION AND PROCESSING BY DR. LOUIS ...
1 GOAT SEMEN COLLECTION AND PROCESSING BY DR. LOUIS ...
1 GOAT SEMEN COLLECTION AND PROCESSING BY DR. LOUIS ...
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combination to evaluate an ejaculate. As indicated previously, the combined use of<br />
computerized semen analysis systems and zona-free hamster ova penetration assays may<br />
prove to be a powerful set of tools but the costs are currently prohibitive for most<br />
commercial production facilities. The following is a list of the more common ejaculate<br />
characteristics used for evaluation.<br />
1. Concentration (millions of sperm/ml)<br />
2. Progressive motility (%)<br />
3. Acrosome morphology (% intact acrosomes)<br />
4. Volume (ml)<br />
5. Tail morphology (% abnormal)<br />
6. Mass motility (%)<br />
7. Ejaculate color<br />
8 pH<br />
Why do we bother to perform these evaluations? Even though fertility cannot be<br />
accurately predicted, the lack of it can. Deviations from the norm is usually a good<br />
predictor of low fertility. Our objective in evaluating semen quality should be to identify<br />
those samples that have traits pointing to the probability of below normal fertility and<br />
therefore discard them. An extension of this thought is to discard those males that<br />
continuously produce poor quality semen.<br />
In general, semen quality can be divided into two categories: a) the number of sperm<br />
cells harvested and b) the viability of the collected sperm cells. Quantification of sperm<br />
cells can be readily determined with the proper equipment and training. It is simply the<br />
product of the ejaculate volume and the sperm concentration.<br />
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