Reproduction in Domestic Animals - Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias

16 t h International Congress on Animal Reproduction
Poster Abstracts 137
P331
Sexual behaviour and semen quality of rabbits fed with
diets containing Myristica fragrans (Houtt) (Nutmeg)
Herbert, U.*, Ukar, IA.
College of Animal Science and Animal Production, Michael Okpara University
of Agriculture, Umudike, Umuahia, Nigeria
Introduction Rabbits, in Nigeria, have been exhibiting low
reproductive performance in terms of litter size, copulatory behaviour,
etc which could be attributed to several factors including genetic,
physiological and environmental factors (Herbert, et al., 2005).
Studies have been carried out to find out the aphrodisiac effect of 50%
Ethanolic extract of Myristica fragrans on male rats (Tajuddin, 2003)
with positive results. This study was designed to determine the sexual
behaviour and semen quality of rabbits fed diets containing whole
seeds Myristica fragrans.
Materials and Methods Eighteen mature crossbred rabbits divided
into 3 groups were used in the study. The whole nutmeg seeds were
dried and milled prior to incorporation into the diets at 0% (T 1 ), 2.5%
(T 2 ) and 5.0% (T 3 ) of dietary dry matter. The diets were fed the
animals ad libitum for 12 weeks. Semen was collected fortnightly
using an artificial vagina as described by Herbert and Adejumo (1995)
and analysed using standard methods. Data obtained were analysed
using the analysis of variance technique.
Results and Discussion There were no significant differences
(P>0.05) between the treatment groups in all the parameters
measured. Reaction time was however shorter in the T 3 group being
10.30 seconds as against 12.13 seconds in the T 1 , implying an
improvement in this parameter. Semen volume decreased with
increasing level of nutmeg in the diet with T 1 , T 2 and T 3 having values
of 0.95ml, 0.84ml and 0.76ml respectively. All the semen volumes
obtained in this study were higher than the 0.71ml reported by Herbert
and Adejumo (1995). The sperm concentration values obtained ranged
from 22.00x10 6 /ml for T 1 to 25.75x10 6 /ml for T 3 . These values are
lower than those reported by Herbert and Adejumo (1995). However,
the non-significant variations in the sperm concentration indicating
increase with increasing level of nutmeg suggests that further increase
in the level of nutmeg in the diet may lead to a significant variation in
the treatments. The values obtained for motility, live sperm proportion
and abnormal sperm fall within normal ranges in the literature. It is
concluded from this study that even though there were no significant
differences between the treatments, Myristica fragrans tended to
improve the reproductive performance of the rabbit bucks.
References Herbert, U, Ozoje, M O, Adejumo, D O (2005). Animal
Research 54(3):173-174.; Herbert, U. and Adejumo, D.O. (1995).
Delta Agric. 4: 99 – 108.; Tajuddin, Ahmad, S, Latif, A, Qasmi, I.A.
(2003). BMC Complement. Altern. Med. 3:6.
P332
Characterization of rabbit uterine electric and mechanical
activities associated to the presence of capacitated and
non capacitated spermatozoa
Lazcano-Reyes, JF 1 *; Montiel, JL 2 ; Medrano, A 2 .
1Programa de Maestria y Doctorado en Ciencias de la Producción y la Salud
Animal. 2 Departamento de Ciencias Pecuarias. Facultad de Estudios
Superiores – Cuautitlán. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Uterine motility is very important during gestation, parturition and
mating since it may play an important role for sperm transport and
capacitation, for instance, an increase in myometrial motility could be
displayed when a sperm subpopulation shows hyperactivation. The
objective was to characterize the electric and mechanical activity of
rabbit uterus after mating and other treatments. In the first stage,
contractibility was measured in 3 segments: uterus (UTE), uterotubal
junction (UTJ) and oviduct (OVI) from 20 adult does, before and after
the application of 200, 100 and 50 microlitres, respectively, of each
treatment: 1) Mating, 2) Seminal Plasma and 3) PBS. In the second
stage, either capacitated or non capacitated spermatozoa were
introduced into each uterine segment from 20 adult does, and
contractibility (g) and electric activity (mV) were recorded for 3
minutes before and after treatment. Data was analyzed by ANOVA to
determine possible differences between treatments and segments; a
correlation test between mechanic and electric activities was carried
out. Basal values for mechanical and electric activity were: 9.4, 9.1
and 9.4 g; 0.14, 0.09 and 0.13 mV for UTE, UTB and OVI
respectively. Regarding the effect of treatments, values of mechanic
and electric activity were: 8.8, 7.6 and 10.9 g; 0.08, 0.10 and 0.14 mV
for UTE, UTB and OVI respectively, with PBS. Values with Seminal
plasma were: 12.0, 8.8 and 8.5 g; 0.07, 0.06 and 0.11 mV for UTE,
UTB and OVI respectively. Values after mating were: 6.1, 6.7 and 8.7
g; 0.13, 0.08 and 0.10 mV for UTE, UTB and OVI respectively. In the
first stage, contractibility between uterine segments was not different
for PBS and Mating, but it was for Seminal Plasma (P