Effect of season on sexual behavior, testicular measurements and seminal characteristics in "Beni arouss" North Moroccan bucks

Seasonal Variations in Semen Parameters of Zulu Rams Preserved at 10°C for 72 H During Breeding and Non-Breeding Season

“…Semen was further evaluated for fresh spermatozoa motility in both breeding and non-breeding season. High total motility and rapid motility during breeding season than non-breeding season in the current study was expected in line to numerous studies (Gündoğan, 2007;Badi et al, 2018;Kadili et al, 2019). This is because semen quality is highly affected by testicular volume (Gündoğan, 2007) as mentioned above and scrotal circumference (Badi et al, 2018).…”

“…Benia et al (2018) obtained similar results in Ouled-Djellal rams. However, other authors (Barkawi et al, 2006;Gündoğan, 2007;Azawi and Ismael, 2012;Golher et al, 2018;Hedia et al, 2019) reported huge seasonal variation on spermatozoa concentration, with breeding season recording higher concentration than non-breeding season with winter yielding lesser sperm concentration (Wang et al, 2015;Kadili et al, 2019). Noteworthy, the sperm concentration from the current study was higher than that reported by (Chella et al, 2017) in Zulu rams.…”

“…In the current study, total and rapid motility were higher during breeding season than non-breeding season. These results contradicted to (Benia et al, 2018) nonetheless, the method use might cause the differences since they used subjective method but were in line to (Kadili et al, 2019) who observed high total motility during autumn than winter in Beni Arous bucks. Other authors reported a seasonal effect on sheep reproduction efficiency where semen quality decreased (Zaragaza et al, 2009), depending on the latitude of origin (Carvajal-Serna et al, 2019).…”

“…It was not surprising to find high live spermatozoa during breeding season than non-breeding season, with the dead spermatozoa in the opposite direction in the current study. However, (Kadili et al, 2019) found high spermatozoa viability during non-breeding season than breeding season. Normal spermatozoa have a significant role in different ways.…”

“…This is because, testicle volume shrink during non-breeding season and are highly affected by the heat stress (Hedia et al, 2019). Seminiferous tubules during breeding season occupies the majority of the testicular tissues (76.6%) and the spermatic layers (Barkawi et al, 2006;Kadili et al, 2019). Therefore, low semen volume obtained during non-breeding season is an indication of the positive correlation between semen volume and testicles size (Sarlós et al, 2013).…”