Oral administration of royal jelly may improve the preservation of rooster spermatozoa.

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation of royal jelly (RJ) on liquid and frozen storage of rooster spermatozoa. Twenty-five 30-week-old of Mazandaran native breeder roosters were randomly divided into five treatments (n=5 roosters/group). Experimental treatments are designed to include a control group and various levels (0.0 (RJ0), 100 (RJ100), 200 (RJ200), 300 (RJ300) mgkg-1 BW-1 ) of royal jelly (RJ) that were fed to the roosters using force-feed method. The percentage of forward progressive motility, abnormal spermatozoa, membrane integrity and viability of spermatozoa evaluated after 24 and 48hr of cooling (at 4°C) and after the freeze-thawing process. Also, mitochondrial activity and DNA fragmentation in fresh (24hr) and post-thawed spermatozoa were assessed. The result of this study showed that the spermatozoa forward progressive motility, abnormality, membrane integrity, and viability were improved by the RJ100 group compared to the other groups after 24 and 48hr storage period at 4°C. The percentage of membrane integrity and forward progressive motility after freeze-thawing in the RJ100 group was significantly higher than the other groups, and the percentage of abnormal spermatozoa was lower. A significant decrease in semen quality parameters was seen after 24 and 48hr of refrigeration, but there was no observed change between 2 and 24hr in the RJ100. The viability percentage of spermatozoa in both RJ100 and RJ200 groups was not different. Moreover, after freeze-thawing, DNA integrity and mitochondrial activity in the RJ100 group were significantly higher than the other groups. According to our results, feeding of RJ at 100mgkg-1 BW-1 to the roosters was improved spermatozoa characteristics during liquid and cryopreservation conditions.