The effect of freeze-dried quail egg white and yolk addition to basic EK extender on morphology and motility of chicken broiler breeder semen was investigated. Fresh pooled semen was divided into eight parts: fresh, undiluted (control), diluted in 1:2 ratio (v/v) with basic EK extender, EK + 200 mg/ml of egg white, EK + 100 mg/ml of egg white, EK + 50 mg/ml of egg white, EK + 100 mg/ml of egg yolk, EK + 50 mg/ml of egg yolk, EK + 25 mg/ml of egg yolk. Semen samples were evaluated 15 min after dilution and after 6 h of storage at 4°C. In the fresh semen, the number of live normal sperm was the highest in semen diluted with EK + 200 mg of egg white and EK + 100 mg of egg yolk, while the highest sperm motility was in the neat semen. Semen storage reduced the number of normal sperm in all analysed semen samples. In the neat semen, the number of normal sperm decreased, in relation to the fresh not-stored samples, by 36.8% (from 72.3% to 35.5%), with EK extender by 9.2%, in samples enriched with egg white, from 8.4% (EK + 200 mg) to 10.0% (EK + 100 mg), and in EK with egg yolk addition, from 1.2% (EK + 50 mg) to 10.6% (EK + 100 mg). The highest percentage of motile sperm was observed in EK extender enriched with 50 mg of egg white (77.1%) and EK + 25 mg of egg yolk (65.3%).
Keywords: motility; quail egg yolk; rooster; semen extenders; sperm morphology.
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