Spermatozoan Motility as a Measure of Semen Quality

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Only a portion of the spermatozoa in freshly ejaculated semen from bulls of normal fertility possess motility. As detd. by the hemacytometer method in which counts instead of estimates were made, an average of 64.1% of the cells showed motility of various grades and only 51.6% possessed progressive motion. Motility declined rapidly in these same ejaculates even when stored in egg yolk-phosphate buffer. After a storage period of 4 days only 34.9% were motile and 14.2% progressively motile. 4 types of spermatozoa were detd. on the same ejaculates by combining the hemacytometer method and the opal blue-eosin staining method. These were (1) dead or stained (2) live-non-motile, (3) weakly motile and (4) progressively motile. Either the percentages of live, motile or progressively motile spermatozoa in fresh semen could be used for predicting the percentage of live spermatozoa in semen after a storage period of 4 days in egg yolk-phosphate buffer. However, none of these were useful in predicting the percentages of motile and or progressively motile spermatozoa after this storage period. The percentage of motile spermatozoa in fresh bull semen correlated with fertilizing capacity of 67 ejaculates was low (r = 0.314), but the percentage of progressively motile spermatozoa was not significantly correlated with fertilizing capacity (r = 0.167).

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: