Artificial insemination of farmed red deer (Cervus elaphus)

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Abstract
Six experiments involving the artificial insemination (AI) of a total of 300 female red deer (hinds) with frozen-thawed red deer semen (collected by electro-ejaculation) were conducted over 3 years. Insemination took place at fixed times following various oestrous synchronization procedures using progesterone withdrawal and treatment with pregnant mare's serum gonadotropin (PMSG). In the 1st year, the experiments evaluated basic AI techniques in which pregnancy rates were 45% in 20 hinds receiving two inseminations per vaginam (PV) and 56% in 27 hinds inseminated by the laparoscopic intrauterine method (IU). In the 2nd year, the experiments involved comparisons of the progesterone regime, one or two PV inseminations, and the timing of a single PV insemination. There was no effect of replacement of the progesterone device after 9 days and withdrawal 3 days later compared with the use of one device for the whole period in two experiments. The pregnancy rate for a double PV insemination was significantly higher than for a single PV insemination (58 and 34%; P < 0·05) and there was also a small effect of timing of insemination relative to the synchronization treatment. In the 3rd year all hinds were inseminated by the IU method. The experiments involved a comparison of various times of AI following progesterone withdrawal and a comparison of the progesterone regime. The overall pregnancy rate for 63 hinds inseminated was 56% with no difference between three times of insemination (48, 52 and 55 h). In the second experiment, the difference in pregnancy rate between treatment with progesterone for 15 days and 12 days (44 and 72% for 18 hinds per group) was not significant, but the interaction between the length of progesterone treatment and insemination time was significant (P < 0·05), with the 12-day progesterone/55 h insemination giving a much higher pregnancy rate than the 15-day/55 h insemination (89 and 20% respectively). Although no experiments involved direct comparisons of the routes of insemination, overall pregnancy rates were 56% for IU, 53% for double PV and 35% for single PV inseminations.