Semen quality parameters of the Tanzanian Horasi chicken ecotype

Abstract

Predicting potential fertility and eventual egg hatchability in chickens can be done by evaluating the quality of the semen. This study's objective was to describe the semen characteristics of three different age groups of Horasi chicken ecotype cocks (24-32, 28-36, and 32-40 weeks). From 20 Horasi cocks; 6 cocks (24-32 weeks), 6 cocks (28-36 weeks), and 8 cocks (32-40 weeks) over the course of four weeks (5-29^th Dec 2022), 80 semen samples in total were taken. Sperm was harvested from cocks using the abdominal massage technique. The amount of semen, pH, sperm motility, sperm concentration, live spermatozoa percentage, and spermatozoa with normal morphology percentage were all measured. Between the three age groups, the semen volume, pH, sperm motility, sperm concentration, percentage of live spermatozoa, and percentage of spermatozoa with normal morphology ranged from
0.52 ± 0.03mL to 0.68 ± 0.03mL, 7.24 ± 0.01 to 7.31 ± 0.01, 75.16 ± 0.91% to 76.67 ± 1.07%, 4.31 ± 2.27 to 4.56 ± 3.34 × 10⁹ sperm cells/mL, 90.00 ± 0.55% to 91.04 ± 0.85% and 87.78 ± 0.51 to 89.71 ± 0.68% respectively. Only differences in ejaculate volume between the three age groups of Horasi chicken ecotype cocks were significant at p<0.05. The semen quality parameters had extremely low to moderate Pearson correlation coefficients, with values ranging from - 0.22 to 0.38 between sperm concentration and sperm motility, and between the percentage of morphologically normal sperm cells and the percentage of spermatozoa that are alive respectively. The Horasi chicken ecotype's semen parameters are within the normal range, notwithstanding the possibility that individual cocks may differ from one another in some semen characteristics as a result of environmental influences. Using artificial insemination, breeding programs can therefore exploit the Horasi chicken ecotype to increase the productivity of indigenous chickens.