The effect of different diluents on the preservation of chilled fowl semen

In a trial with broiler breeding stock (Hubbard dwarf [female][female] and Peterson [male][male]), control birds were inseminated on 3 occasions with undiluted semen pooled from 5 [male][male]. Three groups, each of 330 [female][female], were similarly inseminated with pooled semen diluted in (1) Lake's diluent, (2) Lake's diluent + gentamycin, and (3) commercial IMV diluent resp., the diluted semen being stored at 4-5C for 6 h before insemination. Data are tabulated on the percentages of infertile eggs, embryo mortality and egg hatchability for each group. There were no significant differences between the 4 groups for any of the 3 traits. For the 3 occasions on which inseminations were carried out, hatchability ranged between groups from 84.4 to 86.6, 79.2 to 83.8, and 69.8 to 79.9.