Researchers at the University of Missouri say livestock semen extender and storage practices are lowering its quality and decreasing litter sizes.
Dr. Peter Sutovsky tells Brownfield freezing semen for storage and using extender to keep semen alive dilutes zinc in seminal fluid…
“That, of course, will affect the sperm and will affect the events that are regulated by sperm zinc,” he said. “Basically, when we freeze and thaw bull sperm, we talk about cryo-capacitation.”
Cryo-capacitation is when sperm cells are activated and move more rapidly to travel through the female reproductive system to reach the egg for fertilization.
Improving livestock production through semen health
