Storage and survival of turkey spermatozoa in the domestic hen's oviduct.

The percentage of fertilized eggs from chicken hens inseminated with turkey semen is very low (Warren & Scott, 1935; Quinn, Burrows & Byerley, 1937; Asmundsen & Lorenz, 1957; Wisoki & Soller, 1968), but it can be considerably increased by depositing the spermatozoa beyond the utero-vaginal junction (Kempenich-Pinto, Schindler, Bornstein & Baroutchieva, 1970). The question arose whether the insemination techniques also affected the accumulation of the turkey spermatozoa in the chicken oviduct. Therefore, in the present work, the storage of turkey spermatozoa in the chicken hen oviduct was studied by histological examinations after intravaginal inseminations or inseminations beyond the utero-vaginal junction. Semen obtained from a local strain of Broad Breasted White Empire turkey toms was washed and diluted to its original volume with Tyrode solution containing chloramphenicol (500 \g=m\g/ml).S.C. White Leghorn hens were inseminated with 0\m=.\2ml of the sperm suspension into the vagina (Smyth & Jeffrey, 1960), magnum (Schindler, Ben-David, Hurwitz & Kempenich, 1967) or uterus (Bobr, Lake, Lorenz, Ogasawara & Krzanowska, 1965). Those hens inseminated into the magnum or uterus were injected intramuscularly with 75, 50 and 25 mg chloramphenicol on the day of insemination and the 1st and 2nd days thereafter, respectively. The utero-vaginal junction and the posterior part of the infundibulum were excised at 2 and 6 days after the inseminations, for histological examination. The excised segments were fixed in 4% formal¬ dehyde. Sagittal sections were prepared from the utero-vaginal junction and transverse sections from the infundibulum. The sections were about 100 μ apart from each other and were stained with haematoxylin and eosin. The regions and the relative sizes of the sperm accumulations resulting from the different insemination techniques are presented in Table 1. It can be seen that, after intravaginal inseminations, spermatozoa were stored in the uterovaginal junction only. After intramagnal inseminations, they were present almost exclusively in the infundibulum and after intra-uterine inseminations, spermatozoa accumulated in both regions. After intravaginal inseminations, sperm accumulations were small or absent, whereas after 'deep' inseminations, especially after intra-uterine ones, they were