Seminal characteristics and artificial insemination of Chinese pheasants, Tragopan temminckii, Lophophorus impeyanus, and Lophophorus lhuysii

Abstract

Long-term conservation plans for endangered species of birds include the study of basic reproductive functions and the development of artificial reproductive techniques. This 6 year study of Chinese pheasants resulted in the description of seminal characteristics and the production of chicks from artificial insemination in each of three species. Semen was collected three times a week from February through June from two Temminck's tragopans (Tragopan ternrninckii), four Himalayan monals (Lophophorus irnpeyanus) , and one Chinese monal (Lopkophorus lhuysii). Ejaculates were analyzed for volume, concentration, and motility; some were extended and used for artificial insemination (AI). A semen quality index (SQI) was calculated from all measured semen parameters to generate a single number to facilitate the comparison of males, years, and species. For all three species, insemination of fresh semen began the day a hen laid an egg and continued two or three times a week until the end of the study. Over all years, tragopan 2 produced semen with a higher SQI than tragopan 1. Variation within individual Himalayan monals was also recorded with SQIs ranging from a low of 10.8 for male 4 to a high of 25.8 for male 1 . When all males were compared by species, the Chinese monal, collected only in 1 year, exhibited a higher SQI than the tragopans or the Himalayan monals. During one 54 day period, a single tragopan hen was inseminated twice, 28 days apart to assess the longevity of inseminated sperm in the female reproductive tract. Fertile eggs were laid for 21 days following the first insemination and for 26 days following the second insemination. A1 of tragopans and Himalayan monals resulted in 100% hatchability; for Chinese monals, the figure was 57%. It is believed that this study represents the first report of successful artificial insemination in Himalayan and Chinese monals. 0 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Characteristics of fresh semen of captive‐bred capercaillie Tetrao urogallus L.

“…AI technique described by Burrows and Quinn [1937] has been successfully applied with some modification for many domestic [Donoghue and Wishart, 2000; Klimowicz et al, 2005] and nondomestic [Blanco et al, 2009; Durrant et al, 1995; Gee et al, 2004; Zhang, 2006] bird species and have been effective for overcoming some infertility problems. This study provides that the massage method is effective also for semen collection from Capercaillie Tetrao urogallus L., which were not trained previously for seizing and semen collection.…”

Reproduction in Nondomestic Birds: Physiology, Semen Collection, Artificial Insemination and Cryopreservation

“…With modi®cations, this procedure has been used to collect semen from ducks, peacocks, ®nches, canaries (Bonadonna, 1939;A.F. Leighton, personal communication), pigeons and doves (Owen, 1941), waterfowl (Johnson, 1954;Pingel, 1972;Skinner, 1974), pheasants (Smyth, 1968;Durrant and Burch, 1991;Durrant et al, 1995;, quail (Wentworth and Mellen, 1963), falcons Weaver and Cade, 1985), hawks (Corten,l973), cranes (Gee, 1969, unpublished;Archibald, 1974), curassows and turkeys (G.A. Greenwell et al, personal communication), condors (Gee, unpublished) cassowaries (Pickett, personal communication) and ostrich (Irons et al, 1996).…”

The artificial insemination of bumblebee queens

“…In animal husbandry, artificial insemination is routinely used for cattle, pig, sheep, goats and domestic fowl. The techniques were adapted to a range of other vertebrates and have proven useful for the conservation of endangered species through special breeding programs (Chen et al, 1994;Durrant et al, 1995;Holt et al, 1996;Wildt David and Roth Terri, 1997). Artificial insemination has a number of additional advantages, such as the ability to store semen over long periods of time and to ship it to different places, to enable out of season breeding, to control and prevent disease transmission, and enhanced performance through the choice of high breeding values (i.e., lines with higher resistance against parasites) (Evans and Maxwell, 1987).…”