Chicken Semen Cryopreservation

Abstract

Poultry farming in India has got transformed from backyard rearing to commercial industry over the past few decades. There are nineteen recognized poultry breeds that are spread around the country. Chicken lines having specific characteristics were developed and maintained by veterinary universities and research organizations. These diverse chicken breeds/lines are threatened or decreasing in numbers due to various reasons such as repeated occurrence of avian influenza, cross breeding and selective maintenance of lines dictated by the commercial returns. The different native breeds are well adapted to the local environmental conditions and have distinguishing specific features. The population of native breeds is small and scattered. Conservation of the diverse chicken genetic resources is required for any future utilization. Chicken genetic resources may be conserved as live birds or through ex-situ conservation programme. Semen is the only gamete in chicken that can be cryopreserved and used. Alternatively, blastodermal or primordial germ cells can be cryopreserved and reimplanted in recipient embryos. However, the recovery rate is very low and costly for implementing in large scale. Thus, semen cryopreservation is the feasible ex-situ method currently available. There are challenges associated with chicken semen cryopreservation. The semen cryopreservation protocol has to be standardized for each breed or line of chicken, since the results obtained in a breed/line may not be replicated in other breed/line. We have standardized semen cryopreservation protocols for selected breeds and lines maintained at ICAR-DPR. In this manuscript the procedure for chicken semen cryopreservation and evaluation has been detailed. We express our sincere gratitude to Dr. R. N. Chatterjee, Director, ICAR-DPR for his guidance and moral support. We sincerely thank all scientific colleagues and technical staff for their wholehearted support.