Diluents for Turkey Semen

THERE are, to our knowledge, no reports in published literature on the effect of antibiotics and glycine on turkey spermatozoa. The reports on the effect of these additions to avian semen have been concerned with rooster semen (Smith, 1949; Lorenz and Tyler, 1951; Terbush, 1952; Qureshi, 1952). Van Tienhoven and Steel (1957) reported on experiments with turkey semen diluted with three different diluents at dilution rates ranging from 1:1 to 1:15 in which no differences among dilution rates were detected. However, it has been possible to obtain fertility at higher dilution rates with turkey than with rooster semen (van Tienhoven, unpublished), thus indicating differences between semen of these species. We decided to study the effect of added glycine and antibiotics on both fertilizing capacity and livability of turkey semen in different diluents using dilution rates of 1:15. MATERIALS AND METHODS In all experiments semen from 15–20 toms was pooled . . .