Semen and testicular characteristics in Red Sokoto and Sahel bucks fed different protein sources

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to determine the effect of dietary intake of groundnut cake, cotton seed meal and soybean meal (20.97, 46.43 and 18.57%) respectively) on semen quality of Red Sokoto and Sahelian bucks. Twenty seven, 7 months old bucks (12 Red Sokoto and 15 Sahelian) were distributed into three treatments and fed three different protein sources for a period of ninety days. The experimental design was a 2×3 factorial arrangement in a completely randomized design with two breeds of bucks and three protein sources. Semen was collected at the end of the feeding trial by electrical stimulation method to analyze the semen and determine the sperm morphology.  Data collected were subjected to GLM procedure of SAS (2002) while the Tukey post hoc test was used to separate significant means and presented in standard error (±SE) while probabilities of p<0.05 were considered significant. The principal component analysis (PCA) was carried out using SPSS (PASW Statistics 18).  Data analyzed revealed that breed had significant effect on semen volume with the Red Sokoto bucks having higher volume (0.61ml) per ejaculate than the Sahelian bucks (0.44ml). The physical testicular characteristics of the two breeds were not significantly different. The result of the morphological defects of the sperm showed that Red Sokoto bucks had significantly higher values for detached head and curled tail. Dietary protein source had no significant effect on body weight and the semen quality parameters of the bucks. The circumference and length of testis was significantly higher in bucks fed soybean meal and cotton seed meal respectively. There was no significant effect of the different protein sources on the sperm morphological abnormalities. The results obtained suggest that the levels of the protein sources utilized in the rations had no detrimental effect on semen quality, physical testicular characteristics and sperm morphology of Red Sokoto and Sahelian bucks.