發霉玉米、DDGS、精液pH及背脂厚度對公豬精液品質及性行為之影響

Abstract

The objective of this research study was to investigate the effects of contaminated corn, DDGS, semen pH, and backfat on boar semen quality and sexual behavior. Two sets of experiments were conducted for the project. For both sets of experiments, 8 hybrid boars (Landrace × Yorkshire × Duroc), aged about 10 months were used. The first phase of experiment 1 involved training of the boars for successful semen collection while the second phase involved feeding of DDGS and control diets; thereby test for their semen quality and sexual behavior performances. The contamination levels of mycotoxin in the DDGS diet were 50-120 ppm Aflatoxin, 222 ppm Vomitoxin, and 10-200 ppm Fumonisin. The treatment and design structures used in experiment 1 were one-way classification and Completely Randomized method respectively. The boars were randomly assigned to the control and DDGS treatments. Each boar was considered a replicate, and there were four replications per treatment. Period length was 10 weeks. Experiment II was a continuation of experiment 1 but contaminated corn (CC) was used as a treatment diet for a period of 6 weeks. The mycotoxin concentrations in the contaminated corn were 1.7 ppm Aflatoxin, 1,550 ppm Vomitoxin, 800 ppm Fumonisin, and 1.6 ppm Ochratoxin. The same eight boars were used, but with three (3) treatment groups: control, 25%, and 50% CC - one factor with 3 levels. The eight boars were randomly assigned to the three sets of treatments: 2 boars on the control, 3 on the 25%, and 3 on the 50% CC respectively. Semen collections and assessments, behavior observations, weighing, and back fat thickness measurements were carried out on weekly basis for both experiments one and two. All data from the two experiments were gathered and statistically analyzed. The effect of treatments, semen pH, and back fat thickness were evaluated by either T-test or analysis of variance. The differences among the means of the semen quality and sexual behavior variables were compared using the Duncan’s Multiple Range Test. Results in experiment one for “treatment” showed significant differences in mean values for gross motility, survival rate, and the individual motility of sperms ( 0.05). The results in experiment II for “treatment” showed that gross motility, survival rate, and individual motility were significantly affected by the treatments ( 11 mm score significant results for semen quality and sexual behavior performances.