Semen quality of Colombian Creole as compared to commercial pig breeds.

Rafael Suárez-Mesa,Joan Estany,Iang Rondón-Barragán

doi:10.1007/s11250-021-02557-x

Rafael Suárez-Mesa, Joan Estany + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-021-02557-x

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Abstract

Characterization of Creole breeds is still very limited, including reproductive performance. In this research, we assessed the semen quality of three Colombian Creole breeds (Zungo, Casco de Mula and San Pedreño) relative to that of international breeds (Duroc, Belgian Landrace and Pietrain). Two doses from seven boars per breed were evaluated for sperm kinetics and membrane and acrosome integrity using computer-assisted sperm analysis (CASA) and flow cytometry, respectively. The Creole pigs showed lower (P < 0.05) volume of fluid ejaculated (185.5mL vs 239.9mL), and sperm concentration (340.5 × 106 vs 395.4 × 106 sperm/mL), motility (90.9% vs 95.3%) and progressive motility (63.1% vs 67.2%) than international breeds. No relevant differences between Creole and international breeds for sperm velocity traits were observed, but Creole boars had lower (P < 0.05) proportion of morphologic normal sperm (86.1% vs 90.6%) and of sperm with both intact plasma membrane and acrosome integrity (76.8% vs 87.5%). Mitochondrial membrane potential did not differ between breeds. Creole breeds in general produced less normal and motile sperm per ejaculate than international breeds (49.3 × 109 vs 81.5 × 109). Although San Pedreño had larger ejaculates than Zungo and Zungo had a greater proportion of normal and motile sperm than San Pedreño, Creole breeds did not differ in total amount of normal and motile sperm per ejaculate. The semen from Colombian Creole pigs is qualitatively acceptable, being less abundant but rich in normal and motile sperm, than that from commercial breeds. This should be considered when developing recommendations for semen use and conservation for AI in Creole pigs.

Highlights

Colombian Creole pigs are descendants of the Iberian pigs brought by early Spanish settlers at the Colombian Caribbean coast, in the current Department of Córdoba
There are three Creole pig breeds officially recognized in Colombia: Zungo (ZU), located in the Atlantic coast and with a similar hairless phenotype as the Iberian Lampiño pigs; Casco de Mula (CM), which is found mainly in the eastern plains of Colombia and called because of its syndactyly or fused-hoof; and San Pedreño (SP), which is observed around the central mountain ranges of the Antioquia and Viejo Caldas regions and is characterized by their black skin and hair (Oslinger et al, 2006)
No differences were found for velocity traits, the distances covered were lower in C breeds, for curvilinear distance (-20.7 μm, P

Summary

Introduction

Colombian Creole pigs are descendants of the Iberian pigs brought by early Spanish settlers at the Colombian Caribbean coast, in the current Department of Córdoba. They were originally referred as Lampiños, the Spanish word for hairless, since this was one of their more notorious features (Espinosa and Ly, 2015). Creole pigs show lower reproductive and growing performance but better immunocompetence and rusticity than improved commercial breeds (Linares et al, 2011) For this reason, as more intensive farming practices were introduced, Creole pigs were subsequently replaced with international improved breeds, thereby reducing dramatically their census and limiting their presence to small and disconnected nucleus in rural areas. Each breeding nucleus consists of around 70 to 140 individuals, which are distributed in family groups and subjected to a circular mating system to maintain genetic variability (Ocampo-Gallego, 2019)

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