Desarrollo de un dispositivo intravaginal para la recogida de semen en ganado ovino

A new intravaginal device (IVD) was developed for semen collection in commercial farms. Two experiments were conducted to determine whether the IVD affected either the breeding behaviour during mating or the quality of the semen collected. In experiment 1, fifteen artificial vagina (AV) untrained rams were used for assessing the effect of IVD on breeding behaviour compared to natural mating. The results showed that the IVD did not affect ram breeding behaviour during mating. Rams collected in relation to rams evaluated was 80% and rams collected in relation to rams performing mating was 100%. The mean time required for semen collection was 1.3 ± 0.6 min. In experiment 2, two rams trained for artificial vagina were used for assessing semen quality of ejaculates collected with IVD or AV (n=8). The quality of semen samples was assessed after incubation at 37oC in water bath for 0, 1 and 3 hours. Volume, percentage of motile spermatozoa, movement quality, and percentage of spermatozoa with normal apical ridge (NAR) were determined. After three hours of incubation, there were not found significant differences in the semen quality parameters between samples collected with AV or IVD. In conclusion, the IVD described here is a suitable method that allows semen collection of a high percentage of AVuntrained rams in a short period of time.