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The Effect of Lactic Acid on the Functional Capacity of Turkey Semen in Vivo
4^4
RESEARCH NOTES
THE EFFECT OF LACTIC ACID ON THE FUNCTIONAL CAPACITY OF TURKEY SEMEN IN VIVO G. W. FRIARS Department of Poultry Husbandry, Ontario Agricultural College, Guelph, Ontario, Canada (Received for publication December 27, 1956)
male or males of a mating in which the sire or sires have been shifted, thirty-five white turkey females were trap-nested and the eggs were identified by a method which allowed each poult to be traced to the egg of a certain female on a certain day. Artificial insemination was carried out as shown in Table 1 by inseminating each female with 1/40 cc. of pooled turkey semen from either white or bronze males as indicated. Only the females with even trap-nest numbers on their saddles were treated on the fourteenth day of the experiment by injecting into the oviduct 50 cc. of 2% lactic acid in tragacanth jelly. Data was obtained on 14 treated dams and 14 untreated dams. The application of lactic acid prevented poult production from 10 dams for 24 days following treatment. This lack of poult production was for the most part realized through a cessation of egg production.
TABLE 1.—Number and color of poults produced following various treatments Day number*
No. of dams
14
Treated 10 2 2
65 white poults 19 white poults 5 white poults
Controls 1 7 3 3
17 and 18 0 poults 0 poults 0 poults
24
38
0 poults 1 white poult 0 poults
0 poults 2 white poults 14 bronze poults
0 poults 29 white poults 15 white poults
3 bronze poults 4 bronze poults 1 white poult
11 bronze poults 41 bronze poults 8 white poults
24 white poults
3 bronze poults 1 white poult
14 bronze poults 4 white poults
* Day number 1—All dams inseminated with semen of white males. 14—First three groups of dams treated with lactic acid preparation. 17 and 18—All dams inseminated with semen of bronze males on either of these days. 24—All dams inseminated with semen of bronze males. 38—Termination of experiment.
Downloaded from http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of New Orleans on June 5, 2015
The competitive ability of sperm from an initial turkey male in a mating with that of a replacing sire has been evaluated by Kosin and Wakely (1950) and Harper and Parker (1952). The results of these investigators indicate that the technique of shifting sires in single-male-matings is somewhat more limited with turkeys than with chickens. Spermicidal action on turkey semen in vivo should accommodate the possibility of obtaining more than one sire group of progeny from a given group of females. Iwanow (1924) found that female chickens laid fertile eggs after a spermicidal solution had been flushed through the oviduct. Baker (1931) reported that .06% lactic acid had definite spermicidal effects on guinea pig sperm in vitro. For the purpose of investigating the role of a spermicidal agent in inhibiting the persistency of fertility from the initial
455
RESEARCH NOTES
cide used had no consistent spermicidal effect on the sperm retained by turkey females. REFERENCES Baker, J. R., 1931. The spermicidal powers of chemical contraceptives. II. Pure substances. J. Hygiene 31:189-214. Harper, J. A., and J. E. Parker, 1952. Over-lapping of progeny resulting from changing males in turkey matings. Poultry Sci. 31:659—664. Iwanow, E., 1924. Recherches expeiimentales. A propos du processus de la fecondation chez les poules. Comptes rendus Soc. de Biologie, 91: 54-56. Kosin, I. L., and W. J. Wakely, 1950. Persistency of functional capacity of breed-heterologous turkey semen. Poultry Sci. 29: 258-263.
EFFECTS OF OMEGA-METHYL PANTETHINE, A PANTOTHENIC ACID ANTAGONIST, ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF TURKEY EMBRYOS P. F. GOETINCK, U. K. ABBOTT AND F. H. KRATZER
Poultry Husbandry Department, University of California, Davis (Received for publication January 2, 1957)
Vitamin antagonists have been used extensively in nutritional and metabolic studies but their use in the field of chemical embryology has been limited. Cravens and Snell (1949) studied the effects of desoxypyridoxine on the development of the chick embryo and Karnofsky et al. (1949) used folic acid analogs in similar studies. Drell and Dunn (1946, 1948) reported that omega-methyl pantothenic acid, which has a methyl group substituted for a hydrogen in the terminal group of the pantoyl portion of the molecule, is an antagonist of pantothenic acid for many species of lactobacilli and, later, for rats and mice. Bean and Hodges (1954) have also reported a pantothenic acid deficiency with omega-methyl pantothenate in humans. These results could not be confirmed by Bird and co-workers (1955) who were unable to induce a pantothenic acid deficiency in rats using either
omega-methyl pantothenic acid or omegamethyl pantethine. Omega-methyl pantethine, however, was found to be an effective inhibitor for several micro-organisms. Experiments were carried out in which omega-methyl pantethine was injected into turkey eggs to explore the possibility of using this method to induce a nutritional deficiency in turkey embryos and concomitantly to obtain more information on the effects of pantothenic acid deficiency in turkeys. MATERIAL AND METHODS Eggs from Broad Breasted Bronze turkeys were used in these experiments. All eggs were injected before incubation. The site of injection on each egg was cleaned with 70 percent ethanol and a small hole drilled through the shell but not through the inner shell membrane. Injections were made into the yolk sac with a 1 cc. tu-
Downloaded from http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of New Orleans on June 5, 2015
Two of the treated females showed that the semen from the bronze males supplanted the effect of white males' semen while the sperm of the white males appear to have survived the lactic acid treatment of two other females in which they were harbored. Among the untreated females, seven cases were noted in which the bronze semen completely replaced the effect of the whites; in three cases all white poults were produced following insemination with bronze semen and in three cases a mixture of white and bronze poults were obtained. The limited data of this preliminary work indicate that the spermi-
RESEARCH NOTES
THE EFFECT OF LACTIC ACID ON THE FUNCTIONAL CAPACITY OF TURKEY SEMEN IN VIVO G. W. FRIARS Department of Poultry Husbandry, Ontario Agricultural College, Guelph, Ontario, Canada (Received for publication December 27, 1956)
male or males of a mating in which the sire or sires have been shifted, thirty-five white turkey females were trap-nested and the eggs were identified by a method which allowed each poult to be traced to the egg of a certain female on a certain day. Artificial insemination was carried out as shown in Table 1 by inseminating each female with 1/40 cc. of pooled turkey semen from either white or bronze males as indicated. Only the females with even trap-nest numbers on their saddles were treated on the fourteenth day of the experiment by injecting into the oviduct 50 cc. of 2% lactic acid in tragacanth jelly. Data was obtained on 14 treated dams and 14 untreated dams. The application of lactic acid prevented poult production from 10 dams for 24 days following treatment. This lack of poult production was for the most part realized through a cessation of egg production.
TABLE 1.—Number and color of poults produced following various treatments Day number*
No. of dams
14
Treated 10 2 2
65 white poults 19 white poults 5 white poults
Controls 1 7 3 3
17 and 18 0 poults 0 poults 0 poults
24
38
0 poults 1 white poult 0 poults
0 poults 2 white poults 14 bronze poults
0 poults 29 white poults 15 white poults
3 bronze poults 4 bronze poults 1 white poult
11 bronze poults 41 bronze poults 8 white poults
24 white poults
3 bronze poults 1 white poult
14 bronze poults 4 white poults
* Day number 1—All dams inseminated with semen of white males. 14—First three groups of dams treated with lactic acid preparation. 17 and 18—All dams inseminated with semen of bronze males on either of these days. 24—All dams inseminated with semen of bronze males. 38—Termination of experiment.
Downloaded from http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of New Orleans on June 5, 2015
The competitive ability of sperm from an initial turkey male in a mating with that of a replacing sire has been evaluated by Kosin and Wakely (1950) and Harper and Parker (1952). The results of these investigators indicate that the technique of shifting sires in single-male-matings is somewhat more limited with turkeys than with chickens. Spermicidal action on turkey semen in vivo should accommodate the possibility of obtaining more than one sire group of progeny from a given group of females. Iwanow (1924) found that female chickens laid fertile eggs after a spermicidal solution had been flushed through the oviduct. Baker (1931) reported that .06% lactic acid had definite spermicidal effects on guinea pig sperm in vitro. For the purpose of investigating the role of a spermicidal agent in inhibiting the persistency of fertility from the initial
455
RESEARCH NOTES
cide used had no consistent spermicidal effect on the sperm retained by turkey females. REFERENCES Baker, J. R., 1931. The spermicidal powers of chemical contraceptives. II. Pure substances. J. Hygiene 31:189-214. Harper, J. A., and J. E. Parker, 1952. Over-lapping of progeny resulting from changing males in turkey matings. Poultry Sci. 31:659—664. Iwanow, E., 1924. Recherches expeiimentales. A propos du processus de la fecondation chez les poules. Comptes rendus Soc. de Biologie, 91: 54-56. Kosin, I. L., and W. J. Wakely, 1950. Persistency of functional capacity of breed-heterologous turkey semen. Poultry Sci. 29: 258-263.
EFFECTS OF OMEGA-METHYL PANTETHINE, A PANTOTHENIC ACID ANTAGONIST, ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF TURKEY EMBRYOS P. F. GOETINCK, U. K. ABBOTT AND F. H. KRATZER
Poultry Husbandry Department, University of California, Davis (Received for publication January 2, 1957)
Vitamin antagonists have been used extensively in nutritional and metabolic studies but their use in the field of chemical embryology has been limited. Cravens and Snell (1949) studied the effects of desoxypyridoxine on the development of the chick embryo and Karnofsky et al. (1949) used folic acid analogs in similar studies. Drell and Dunn (1946, 1948) reported that omega-methyl pantothenic acid, which has a methyl group substituted for a hydrogen in the terminal group of the pantoyl portion of the molecule, is an antagonist of pantothenic acid for many species of lactobacilli and, later, for rats and mice. Bean and Hodges (1954) have also reported a pantothenic acid deficiency with omega-methyl pantothenate in humans. These results could not be confirmed by Bird and co-workers (1955) who were unable to induce a pantothenic acid deficiency in rats using either
omega-methyl pantothenic acid or omegamethyl pantethine. Omega-methyl pantethine, however, was found to be an effective inhibitor for several micro-organisms. Experiments were carried out in which omega-methyl pantethine was injected into turkey eggs to explore the possibility of using this method to induce a nutritional deficiency in turkey embryos and concomitantly to obtain more information on the effects of pantothenic acid deficiency in turkeys. MATERIAL AND METHODS Eggs from Broad Breasted Bronze turkeys were used in these experiments. All eggs were injected before incubation. The site of injection on each egg was cleaned with 70 percent ethanol and a small hole drilled through the shell but not through the inner shell membrane. Injections were made into the yolk sac with a 1 cc. tu-
Downloaded from http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of New Orleans on June 5, 2015
Two of the treated females showed that the semen from the bronze males supplanted the effect of white males' semen while the sperm of the white males appear to have survived the lactic acid treatment of two other females in which they were harbored. Among the untreated females, seven cases were noted in which the bronze semen completely replaced the effect of the whites; in three cases all white poults were produced following insemination with bronze semen and in three cases a mixture of white and bronze poults were obtained. The limited data of this preliminary work indicate that the spermi-