caa a22 4500 397567987 CHVBK 20180308164833.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161202e199606 xx s 000 0 eng 10.3382/ps.0750755 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)oxford-10.3382/ps.0750755 Age Effect of Male and Female Broiler Breeders on Sperm Penetration of the Perivitelline Layer Overlying the Germinal Disc [Elektronische Daten] [R. K. BRAMWELL, C. D. MCDANIEL, J. L. WILSON, B. HOWARTH] An experiment was conducted to test the effect of age (male and female) on the number of spermatozoa penetrating the perivitelline layer (PL) overlying the germinal disc (GD) in broiler breeders. Eighty young broiler breeder hens (39 wk old, Y), and 80 old spent broiler breeder hens (69 wk old, O) were randomly divided into eight groups of 20 hens each by age. Hens were inseminated weekly for 4 consecutive wk with 5 × 107 pooled sperm/50 μL from either young or old broiler breeder males. Sperm penetration (SP) of the PL at the GD was assessed in a random sample of 12 oviposited eggs from each hen group for each day postinsemination, with the remainder of the eggs incubated for 10 d to obtain fertility values. For the main effect of sex, and for age within sex, there were differences in mean SP (7.3 vs 4.8; Y vs O hens; P < 0.02) and fertility (73.7 vs 54.9%; Y vs O hens; P < 0.002) values. Old males had higher mean SP values and fertility (7.2 and 70.6%) than young males (4.8 and 58.0%; P < 0.03 and 0.01, respectively). Following artificial insemination of a constant number of sperm, age of hens appears to contribute more to the decrease in SP and fertility than the age of male broiler breeders. Eggs were obtained from naturally mated broiler breeder flocks from different strains (A and B), lines (male and female), and ages. There was an effect on overall mean SP values due to strain (105.8 vs 78.6 holes per GD area; Strains A and B, respectively; P < 0.0001), and line within Strain B (106.4 vs 50.8 holes per GD; male and female line, respectively; P < 0.0001). There was a quadratic relationship between SP of the PL and age in Strain A with values ranging from 153.3 to 20.0 holes per GD area (P < 0.003). In Strain B, SP holes in the PL decreased in the male line due to age (127.8 to 59.7 per GD; P < 0.01), with an effect of age on the female line also (62.1 vs 37.8 hole s per GD; P < 0.05). © 1996 Poultry Science Association, Inc. Physiology and Reproduction nationallicence broiler breeder nationallicence age nationallicence fertility nationallicence sperm penetration nationallicence BRAMWELL R. K. aut MCDANIEL C. D. aut WILSON J. L. aut HOWARTH B. 4To whom correspondence and reprint request should be addressed. aut Poultry Science Oxford University Press 75/6(1996-06), 755-762 0032-5791 75:6<755 1996 75 ps https://doi.org/10.3382/ps.0750755 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.3382/ps.0750755 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- BRAMWELL R. K. aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- MCDANIEL C. D. aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- WILSON J. L. aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- HOWARTH B. 4To whom correspondence and reprint request should be addressed aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Poultry Science Oxford University Press 75/6(1996-06), 755-762 0032-5791 75:6<755 1996 75 ps Metadata rights reserved CC BY-NC-4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-oxford