Association Between Climatic Factors with Fresh Semen Quality Parameters in Madura Cattle (an Indonesian Native Breed)

Abstract

Semen quality is a critical point to ensure the success of the artificial insemination program. One factor which highly determine the semen quality of bulls is climatic conditions. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the association between climatic factors and fresh semen quality parameters in Madura bulls. A total of 1583 ejaculates which were collected from 5 Madura bulls from January 2014 to December 2018 were included in this study. Semen quality parameters such as semen Volume (VOL), sperm Concentration (CONC), Total sperm (TOT), sperm Motility (MOT) and Straw production (STR) were directly evaluated upon collection and then correlated with climate factors such as mean and maximum ambient temperature (ATmean and ATmax, respectively), Relative Humidity (RH) and Temperature-Humidity Index (THI). The results demonstrated that the month of semen collection had no effect (P>0.05) on VOL, CONC and TOT. However, MOT and STR were differed (P<0.05) among semen collection time, with the peak value was observed in March. Among climatic variables studied here, ATmax was the most sensitive factor associated with sperm quality parameters. ATmax value at the same month as semen collection had negative significant correlation (P<0.05) with TOT and STR, while at one and two months before semen collection was consistently had negative significant correlation (P<0.01) with CONC, TOT and STR. It could be concluded that the maximum ambient temperature is the most responsible climatic factor affecting loss of straw production in Madura bulls.