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Effect of Thawing Time in Warm Water on Fertility of Bovine Spermatozoa in Plastic Straws¹

The Pennsylvania State University, University Park 16802

ABSTRACT

Thawing times of 12 and 30 s were compared in a fertility experiment involving 21,424 first service inseminations to 20 Holstein bulls. Milk-diluted semen in .3-ml Continental US straws was thawed in a warm water bath (32 to 35 C) for either 12 or 30 s on alternate days. Based on 66-day nonreturn rates in log-linear models, fertility was significantly higher when semen was thawed for 30 s (72.0%) than for 12 s (70.1%). For 13,543 inseminations by nine technicians over 10 mo, the improvement with longer thawing was not significantly affected by month or season. The difference in nonreturn rate in favor of 30 s over 12 s thawing during summer, fall, winter, and spring months averaged 2.0, 1.9, 3.4, and .8 percentage units. Thus, raising the seminal temperature in straws above 5 C by thawing in warm water for 30 s during cold weather provided a slight increase in fertility.

¹ Journal Series No. 5622, Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station.

² Dairy Breeding Research Center, Department of Dairy and Animal Science.

³ Department of Statistics.

⁴ Atlantic Breeders Cooperative, 1575 Apollo Drive, Lancaster, PA 17601.