Within-herd use of boar semen at 5 degrees C, with a note on electronic monitoring of oestrus.
A system was designed to allow a small swine farm in a northern latitude to use its own boars for artificial insemination (AI) conveniently. Semen was collected twice weekly for 3 day use (days 0, 1 and 2), extended in an egg yolk extender and stored at 5 degrees C. Farm personnel were trained to manage the entire AI programme. For simplicity all semen collected was used for insemination. In the first test 47 gilts and 15 sows were inseminated with semen from four boars. One boar was subfertile with a farrowing rate of 36%. The averages for the other boars ranged from 71 to 100%. Then semen was collected from seven boars and all was used to inseminate 70 gilts and 55 sows with 3 x 10(9) or more sperm. Overall 63% farrowed an average of 10.1 piglets per litter. Litter size for sows was 1.5 piglets larger than for gilts. There was no difference in farrowing rate when more than 3 x 10(9) sperm were inseminated. The feasibility of initiating a complete AI programme within a small herd using herd boars was established. However, selection of the boars, use of only high quality semen, and experience with detecting oestrus was required to increase the farrowing rate. The use of various agents to protect sperm against cold shock below 15 degrees C is worthy of further investigation. A new type of electronic probe, which measures the conductivity of cervical mucus, could be helpful if a boar is not available for conventional detection of oestrus.
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Department of Animal Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-4801, USA. dgb1@Cornell.edu
D000818:Animals; D003080:Cold Temperature; D004971:Estrus / Q000502:physiology*; D004972:Estrus Detection / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D007315:Insemination, Artificial / Q000662:veterinary*; D008098:Litter Size; D008297:Male; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000662:veterinary; D011247:Pregnancy; D012662:Semen Preservation / Q000379:methods / Q000662:veterinary*; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000502:physiology*; D013552:Swine / Q000502:physiology*