OPTIMIZING THE LIQUID STORAGE PRESERVATION ABILITY OF NATURAL FORMULATED POULTRY SEMEN EXTENDER FOR TURKEY BREEDING

Abstract

An experiment was designed to identify appropriate insemination dosage to achieve optimum fertility with tom semen preserved for 4 and 12hours at 5oC. Five (5) healthy indigenous toms and thirty-six (36) hens between 37-38 weeks of age were used for this study. A completely randomized design (CRD), with a 4×2 factorial arrangement involving four semen types and two insemination dosage were used. Undiluted, TEYO diluted, 4 hours TEYO chilled semen and 12 hours TEYO chilled semen were the four types of semen that were employed. While insemination dosages were 0.05mL and 0.1mL. The result revealed that hens inseminated 0.1mL dosage of 4hrs TEYO chilled semen have significant (p<0.05) higher percentage fertility, hatchability of fertile eggs and eggs set value comparable to 0.05mL dosage of TEYOE extended tom semen and un-extended semen compared to hens inseminated 0.05mL 4hrs TEYO chilled semen and 12hrs TEYOE chilled semen. Furthermore, Hens inseminated with 0.1mL TEYOE chilled semen has higher percentage hatchability of fertile eggs and eggs set than 0.05mL dosage and was above observed grand mean comparable to un-extended and TEYO extended semen. It can therefore be concluded that 4hrs TEYO chilled turkey semen inseminated at 0.1mL had fertility and hatchability result comparable to unpreserved semen with or without extender