Effect of season and management on semen quality of breeding bulls - a review.

Abstract

Artificial insemination is nowadays a widely used technique for the enhancement of genetic potential of livestock species. But still the maximum benefit of this tool cannot be extracted as there are certain inherent problems of semen quality like poor semen quality and poor freezability with crossbred and buffalo bulls. Correspondingly, there is a genetic and economic loss owing to disposal of these high genetic merit bulls. Semen quality is affected by several factor of which season is one of the major factors. It exerts its effect on reproductive performance through macro and micro climatic factors like temperature, humidity, rainfall, photo-period. On the other side vaccination of exotic and crossbred animals for prevention of contagious diseases, as they are more prone to them in turn has detrimental effect on the semen quality. Therefore suitable management strategies are being searched for and incorporated, like laboratory procedures i.e. the use of filtration technique so as to maximize quality semen production without discarding too many poor quality ejaculates and re-scheduling of vaccination protocol to unfavorable season in terms of semen production.