Comparative Effect of Centrifugation on Sperm Viability of FUNAAB Alpha Chickens During Slow and Rapid Freezing Protocols

The aim of this study was to compare the effects of centrifuging FUNAAB Alpha chickens during slow and rapid freezing protocols on sperm quality endpoints in cryopreserved chicken sperm. For this experiment, ejaculates from thirty cocks 25-30 weeks old with normal feather, naked neck, and frizzle feather from FUNAAB alpha chickens were pooled and frozen in Tris-extenders before being thawed and evaluated. The semen samples were split into two groups. The first part was washed with regular saline water and centrifuged at 500xg for 5 minutes to extract the seminal plasma, while the second part remained unwashed. Washed and unwashed sperm samples were cryopreserved using slow and rapid cryoprotocols, and then sperm viability was assessed. Two-way ANOVA was used to analyze the data. Results showed higher (p<0.05) motility for slow freezing (SF) cryoprotocols compared to samples subjected to rapid freezing (RF) for unwashed and washed spermatozoa. In washed spermatozoa, SF livability was found to be higher (p<0.05) than RF. Unwashed spermatozoa subjected to RF had higher membrane integrities (p<0.05) than unwashed spermatozoa subjected to SF and washed SF and RF cryoprotocol. Washed sperm subjected to SF cryoprotocol had lower malondialdehyde concentration (MDA) concentrations (p<0.05) than washed sperm subjected to RF cryoprotocol, but were equivalent to unwashed sperm subjected to RF cryoprotocol. In both the SF and RF cryoprotocols, seminal leukocytes in washed and unwashed semen samples were comparable. In conclusion, removal of seminal plasma did not increase the viability of the spermatozoa using slow freezing cryoprotocols.