Fertility of ewe following intrauterine laparoscopic insemination with frozen-thawed semen

Abstract

Cryopreservation of sperm opening up possibilities for improvement of breeding work due to the rational use of the valuable animals’ genetic potential became the basis for cryobanks of biomaterial, contributed to the widespread, the exchange of gene pool. However, AI with frozen-thawed semen is not widespread in sheep as it is in other domestic species. One reason for this is the low efficiency of frozen-thawed ram semen application. The aim of research was to study the fertilizing ability of frozen-thawed semen using intrauterine laparoscopic insemination. The experiments were carried out in Kazakhstan and Russian Federation. For intrauterine insemination by laparoscopy has been used frozen in straws semen of Polypay, Suffolk (courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA), Hampshire, Dorset, Texel, the South African Meat Merino (represented by Animal Breeding Services LTD, New Zealand), and the North Caucasian breeds. During intracervical insemination by frozen semen, the fertility of ewes was 34.4%. When intrauterine insemination using a single detection of sheep on heat, fertilization ranged from 34.7 to 43.7 %, and when using detection of sheep on heat twice a day, fertility was 68.8%. The analysis of factors that can influence the performance of laparoscopic insemination with frozen-thawed semen is presented.

Optimal time for laparoscopic intrauterine insemination performed on ewes detected in natural heat

“…As expected, LR reported in simple statistics of our study were nearly half to those performed under a precise heat detection as was reported by McCappin and Murray, 2011 , Fair et al, 2005 , Anel et al, 2005 , or Masoudi et al (2017) . Interestingly, very similar results to ours were reached previously by Aybazov et al, who in line with our methodology investigated LR of LAI-ed ewe once-daily detected in natural heat ( Aybazov et al, 2019 ). In agreement with Schakell et al, 1990 , Cseh et al, 2012 , our results confirmed that the time of insemination after heat detection impacts significantly the subsequent LR.…”

“…Evans and Maxwell (1987) stated that accurate knowledge of the time of ovulation is crucial to the success of insemination and that in the field conditions accurate detection of heat onset in ewes with natural heat is problematic. Twice daily heat detection allows more accurate timing of insemination relatively to ovulation ( Aybazov et al, 2019 , Evans and Maxwell, 1987 ), and it was used for intrauterine ( Aybazov et al, 2019 , Ham et al, 2000 ) or cervical ( Aybazov et al, 2019 , Paulenz et al, 2004 ) inseminations with thawed sperm of ewes in natural heat. Another approach is inducing heat cycle using a hormonal program ( De et al, 2015 , Casali et al, 2017 , Gibbons et al, 2019 , Macías et al, 2020 ).…”

“…However, in many world regions of extensive sheep farming, the heat cycle synchronization with the aid of hormones is not common, or not available. On the other hand, Aybazov et al reached very promising success of LAI of thawed sperm performed after twice or even once daily natural heat detection with the use of teaser rams ( Aybazov et al, 2019 ). This study motivated us to establish a simple nonhormonal technique of FTAI-like procedure, and to optimize the technique based on an estimation of the optimal time interval for LAI of ewes in natural heat detected by aproned teaser ram.…”

“…after heat ( Jakupov, 1996 ). However, Aybazov et al reached a very promising lambing rate (39.2–43.7%) in ewes LAI-ed with thawed sperm performed after even once-daily heat detection ( Aybazov et al, 2019 ). Although LAI is a minimally invasive procedure, it requires veterinary expertise, implies insufflation of irritant CO 2 into the peritoneal cavity, and is more demanding in terms of expensive equipment and labour than other methods ( Sylla et al, 2021 ).…”

Laparotomic intrauterine insemination with frozen-thawed semen in Sopravissana breed ewes in Central Italy

“…However, pregnancy outcome was greater when compared to intravaginal insemination. In fact, reported results range between 17% and 31.25% (Maxwell and Hewitt 1986;Anel et al 2005) for intravaginal insemination, 18.4% and 34.4% for cervical insemination (Maxwell and Hewitt 1986;Aybazov et al 2019), 13.7% and 34.8% for TCAI (Halbert et al 1990;Eppleston and Maxwell 1995;Salamon and Maxwell 1995a). Indeed, by using laparoscopic intrauterine insemination higher PR is obtained, that is around 44.8% (Anel et al 2005), 50.2% (Casali et al 2017) and 63.7% (Pau et al 2019).…”