Response of Seminal Traits of Horro Rams to Different Levels of Supplementation under Grazing of Natural Pasture

Abstract

The fertility of the male animals is often reported to have a greater influence on stock performance than does the fertility of females, which further greatly affected by nutritional factors. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the response of seminal traits of Horo rams to nutritional supplementation of Noug seed cake and Wheat bran mixture under grazing of natural pasture in western Ethiopian, where 18 uniform intact yearling Horro rams with average initial body weight of 18.55 ± 0.99kg (mean ± SD) were involved in the experiment. The treatments consisted grazing natural pasture alone (T1;Control), or T1 supplemented with concentrate mixture at 0.9% of body weight (T2) or T1 supplemented with concentrate mixture at 1.5% of Body weight (T3). The experimental design used was complete randomize where six rams per treatment were randomly allocated to three dietary treatments. Supplementation significantly (P<0.05- P<0.00) improved most seminal traits. With the exception of semen volume (SV), sperm concentration per ml (SCO), sperm mass motility(SMM), and sperm progressive individual motility(SPIM), there was no significant (P>0.05) difference between T2 and T3, with respect to parameters considered. In general, since supplementation at 1.5% of body weight (T3) significantly improved SV, SCO, SMM and SIM, compared to T2, T3 could be recommended as appropriate feeding strategy to improve the reproductive performance and exploit the genetic potential of the Horro rams, especially for Artificial Insemination program.