Effects of various degrees of supercooling and nucleation temperatures on fertility of frozen turkey spermatozoa.
The relative roles of the degree of supercooling and nucleation temperatures on turkey sperm cell survival and fertilizing capacity during a freeze-thaw cycle were investigated. Basically, the higher the degree of supercooling, which produced lower spontaneous nucleation temperatures during the freezing process, the worse the sperm cells survived, in the present study. When induced nucleation was applied, which eliminated the high degree of supercooling, an improvement in sperm cell survival was noted. During the fertility trial, it was shown that in treatment 3 (induced nucleation) the fertility was higher (P less than 0.05) than in treatment 2 (spontaneous nucleation). In general, the degree of supercooling prior to freezing is an important variable and should be considered very seriously during the overall freezing process.
D000818:Animals; D005298:Fertility; D005615:Freezing; D008297:Male; D012662:Semen Preservation / Q000662:veterinary*; D013081:Sperm Motility; D014422:Turkeys