Daily sperm production, gonadal and extragonadal sperm reserves in rabbit bucks fed dietary ascorbic acid supplementation
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Abstract
A study was conducted for 20 weeks to investigate the effect of dietary ascorbic acid supplementation levels on daily sperm production, gonadal and extragonadal sperm reserves of crossbred rabbit bucks. A total of 20, matured rabbit bucks of 18 to 20 weeks old with average weight of 2.75 kg were used. Ascorbic acid was included in the diets of the rabbits at levels of 0 (control), 100, 200, 300 and 400 mg/kg feed. The rabbits were randomly allotted to the diets (n=4 rabbits/treatments) and housed individually. Each rabbit was a replicate. At the end of the experiment, two bucks per treatment were sacrificed and their testes and epididymides were carefully sampled, weighed and processed for determination of gonadal and epididymal spermatozoa reserves. All data were subjected to general linear model while the significant differences in means were separated using pairwise-difference. Results showed that gonadal sperm reserves of the right testis of bucks fed ascorbic acid supplementation were significantly (P<0.05) higher (288.75, 287.15, 299.98, 296.00 vs. 263.10 x106/ml) than their counterparts fed the control diet. Bucks fed ascorbic acid supplemented diet had significantly (P<0.05) higher (98.76, 98.00, 115.72, 112.67 vs. 83.55) daily sperm production of the right testis compared to bucks fed the control diet. The results of this study suggest that feed grade ascorbic acid supplementation could improve gonadal and extragonadal sperm reserves and daily sperm production of rabbit bucks.