The Influence of Oxygen and Other Gases on the Fertilizing Ability of Fowl Semen Held for Several Hours

CONSIDERABLE progress is being made in the preservation of fowl semen. Wilcox (1960) demonstrated a pro-nounced improvement in fertilizing ability of stored semen by using specific diluents. More recently Harris and Hobbs (1964) reported on the effect of different diluent rates and the effects of C02 level on fowl semen stored in carbon dioxide extenders. The objective of this study was to inves-tigate storage of chicken semen by mea-suring the effect of different gaseous envi-ronments on the fertilizing ability of fowl semen when stored for several hours in Cryovac enclosures at 10°C. MATERIALS AND METHODS The initial experiment in this study was designed to study the effect of a nitrogen gaseous environment on fowl semen. For this test, referred to here as test 1, fifty Leghorn males were milked as described by Borrows and Quinn (1937) in rapid succession. Test 1 was conducted when the Leghorn flock was 280 days of age. The semen was pooled, mixed and dispensed to 36 graduated vials so that each contained 0.6 ml. of semen. The 36 uncorked vials were assigned to 4 holding blocks of 9 vials each. Each holding block was inserted in a Cryovac bag with dimensions of 9 " X 16". Two bags were flushed and inflated with nitrogen gas and the remaining two were inflated with air. All bags were sealed with plastic adhesive tape. The 4 packages wer