Properties and effects of different egg yolks with honey added in extender on sheep semen

The aim of this study was to investigate the properties and effects of chicken, quail and duck egg yolks with or without honey and stingless bee honey as supplementation added in extender on sheep semen. The extended semen were chilled for three periods (two hours, one day and two days).The tested sheep semen quality included semen volume, morphology, sperm concentration, general motility, progressive motility and sperm viability. For comparison among different extenders, the semen quality was analyzed by using Computer-assisted sperm analysis (CASA) and the results were plotted. It was observed that after chilling for two hours quail egg yolk with honey showed the best results in terms of sperm concentration (1.218 × 109 /ml), general motility (86%), progressive motility (67%) and viability (93%). Honey was found to be able to supply sugar to the quail egg yolk which is lack of sugar. Duck egg yolk had the highest viscosity among three egg yolks. After chilling for one day, duck egg yolk extender showed the best results in terms of general motility (63%), progressive motility (33%), viability (86%) and sperm concentration (1.421 × 109 / ml), whereas after chilling two days quail egg yolk extended semen showed the best results with respective parameters of 45%, 30%, 67% and 0.9013 × 109 /ml, respectively. Honey had pH about 3.9, which caused the semen to turn acidic and less favorable for sperm survival. In conclusion, these findings are useful to be considered in future experiments involving semen extender. However, further experiment is necessary to improve the present protocol for better sperm preservation.