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Effect of the Number of Males Contributing to a Seminal Mixture on Fertility of Rabbits¹

Colorado State University, Fort Collins 80523

Abstract

To determine the effect of heterospermic insemination on fertility in Exp. I, albino does were artificially inseminated homospermically with semen from two albino and two homozygous colored bucks and heterospermically with all 11 possible combinations of their semen. Mean pregnancy rates from 206 inseminations were 49, 63, 57 and 42% for insemination doses with one, two, three and four males contributing. There was a quadratic effect (P<.01) of the number of males on pregnancy rate. For does allowed to kindle, the number of offspring per doe inseminated was 2.1, 3.2, 3.5 and 2.0 from mixtures containing spermatozoa from one, two, three and four males; similarly, the percentage of cleaved embryos recovered from sacrificed does was 32.7, 47.7, 37.6 and 32.8. Deviations (P<.05) were observed from the expected 1:1 ratio of offspring from all four mixtures of semen from one albino and one colored buck.

In experiment II, 150 does were inseminated with doses containing semen from one, three or five males. The pregnancy rates were 74, 80 and 78% for inseminations with semen from one, three and five males, and the number of offspring per doe inseminated was 4.2, 5.3 and 4.4, respectively, with a quadratic effect (P<.10) of the number of males contributing to the seminal mixture on the number of offspring per doe.

¹ Animal Reproduction Laboratory, Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics. This investigation was supported in part by International Beef Breeders, Denver, and a Faculty Grant from Colorado State Univ.

² Portions of these data are part of a thesis submitted to the Graduate School of Colorado State Univ. in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the M.S. degree.