374 www.roavs.com EISSN: 2223-0343 RESEARCH OPINIONS IN ANIMAL & VETERINARY SCIENCES Effect of buffers and egg yolk concentrations on chilled and frozen-thawed Boer goat spermatozoa Akeel Ahmed Memon 1,3* , H.Wahid 1* , Y. Rosnina 1 , Y.M. Goh 2 and M. Ebrahimi 2 1 Department of Veterinary Clinical Studies, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia; 2 Department of Veterinary Preclinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia; 3 Department of Animal Reproduction, Faculty of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Sciences, Sindh agriculture University Tandojam Pakistan Abstract This experiment was carried out with the aim to compare the effect of buffers and egg yolk concentrations on chilled and frozen-thawed spermatozoa characteristics of Boer goat. Semen was collected using an artificial vagina. After collection and evaluation, ejaculates qualifying the standard criteria were pooled and selected for extension and freezing. In experiment I, pooled semen was split into three parts and each part was mixed with Tris, citrate and skim milk based extender in two step dilution method and cooled at 4°C for 2.5 h. It was observed that chilled spermatozoa in Tris citric acid fructose egg yolk and skim milk buffers provided significantly (P<0.05) better results in terms of motility, membrane integrity, normal spermatozoa and viability as compared to citrate egg yolk buffer. Furthermore, Numerically, Tris was superior in all sperm parameters than the skim milk but the difference was non- significant (P>0.05). Significant (P<0.05) improvement was observed with Tris followed by skim milk and citrate buffers after freezing. This was observed by significant improvement of motility and acrosome integrity compared to citrate and skim milk. Furthermore, Tris, skim milk and citrate provided the best results in terms of membrane integrity and viability respectively. In experiment II, pooled semen was split into three parts and each part was mixed with Tris based extender containing different concentrations of egg yolk. The highest egg yolk level at 18% improved (P<0.05) chilled frozen thaw spermatozoa quality of Boer goat. Significantly better results (P<0.05) were also observed in all sperm characteristics at 18% egg yolk after freezing. In conclusion, Tris citric acid fructose with 18% egg yolk concentration can be used to improve the chilled and frozen-thaw spermatozoa quality of Boer goat. Keywords: Goat; semen; freezing; extender To cite this article: Memon AA, H Wahid, Y Rosnina, YM Goh and M Ebrahimi, 2013. Effect of Buffers and Egg Yolk Concentrations on Chilled and Frozen-Thawed Boer goat Spermatozoa. Res. Opin. Anim. Vet. Sci., 3(10), 374-379. Introduction In Malaysia, goat population has increased over the past ten years (Jesse et al., 2011). Boer goats from South Africa and Australia were imported in substantial numbers in the past several years to improve the productivity of local goats and to fulfill the demand of mutton in Malaysia (Ariff et al., 2010). Exploiting this species for augmentation of goat production and accelerating the rate of genetic selection in Malaysia to begin on a commercial basis, Aartificical insemination (AI) could possibly be the choice of breeding methods in these species. Several researchers examined different extenders for freezing goat semen. Amongst them the most commonly used are skim milk with and without egg yolk (Corteel, 1974), sodium citrate egg yolk and Tris egg yolk addition (Salamon and Ritar, 1982). According to the limited number of studies on comparison of diluents in which the post-thawing viability and fertility were the criteria for evaluation Corresponding author: Dr. Akeel Ahmed Memon, Department of Animal Reproduction, Faculty of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Sciences, Sindh agriculture University Tandojam, Pakistan; Tel.: +00 92 312 3084776