Abstract

Husam Jasim Hussien Banana, Hakem Takleef Abed Alkhazreji, Zainab Adel Mahdi

The current study was conducted with an aim to know the effect of adding different concentrations of pomegranate peels alcoholic extract (PPAE) on the traits of Awassi ram semen stored at 5°C. Eight ejaculations from three Awassi rams were collected, mixed and diluted with TRIS extender. The semen samples were divided into four equal parts, and then the alcoholic extract of pomegranate peels was added at concentrations of 0, 100, 200 and 300 mg/ 1 ml of extender, which represented each of the treatments C, T1, T2 and T3, respectively. The samples were stored at 5 ° C and semen examinations were performed during periods 0, 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours after collection. Semen traits included calculation percentage of individual motility, viability, abnormalities, plasma membrane integrity, and sperm acrosome integrity. The results indicated that treatment T3 better than control group C in the percentage of individual sperm motility for all preservation periods. The results also showed that treatment T3 were significantly higher than control group C in the percentage of sperm viability for the 72-hour period, reaching 75.25 ± 3.90 and 54.00 ± 7.42%, respectively. The results showed that there were no significant differences in the percentage of sperm abnormalities for all treatments and for all periods. The results showed an improvement in the percentage of plasma membrane integrity and acrosome integrity for T3 treatment compared with control group C during for periods 24, 72 and 96 hours of preservation. We conclude from the present study that the addition of PPAE at a concentration of 300 mg/ 1 ml of TRIS extender improved most parameters of preserved semen of Awassi rams during different preservation periods.