Preservability and conception of chilled and cryopreserved semen with Triladyl egg yolk extender in dromedary camels (Camelus dromedarius)

Abstract

Artificial insemination (AI) technology has not shown much advancements in camels, attributable to various difficulties of semen preservation and insemination in the species. The present study intended to explore the preservability of camel semen under chilled and frozen states, improve proficiency of AI steps and assess conception to AI. Over the two years of study, 383 ejaculates collected from five adult male camels were preserved in Triladyl egg yolk extender using refrigeration or liquid nitrogen and used for AI trials in camels subjected to induction of ovulation. Under chilled storage, even though few samples retained satisfactory motility even beyond 96 h, a majority of the samples suffered significant drop in motility within 24 h. Out of 239 and 739 freezing trials (FT) respectively in the first and second seasons, 18.83% and 23.00% FT achieved a post-thaw motility (PTM) of at least 40%. Insemination studies showed progressive decrease in conception rate with the duration of chilled storage since fresh extended and 24 h chilled semen samples produced 32% and 3.7% conception respectively. Cryopreserved semen achieved two pregnancies (1.82%) out of 110 inseminations in the second season. It is concluded that camel spermatozoa suffers rapid depletion of conception chance upon preservation and underlying reasons needs to be investigated. However, the achievement of two pregnancies indicates the possibility of conception and the scope for cryopreservation based AI technology in dromedary camels.