Assessment of Semen Quality in Local Chicken Strains and Amo Cocks Influenced by Moringa oleifera Extract in Semi-Arid Areas

Abstract

This research was aimed at assessing the semen quality traits of village chicken strains and Amo cocks under the influence of Moringa leaf extracts in a Semi-Arid environment. The research was conducted at the veterinary clinic of the Department of Animal Science, Modibbo Adama University Yola. Sixty sexually matured cocks from five (5) different phenotypes (smooth multicolour, dwarf, frizzle, naked neck and Amo cockerel) were used in the study. The cocks were orally administered with Moringa leaf extracts and semen was collected before and after the administration of the extracts. The cocks were allotted to treatments 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 based on their phenotypes characteristics and each treatment was replicated 12 times in a Completely Randomized design (CRD). According to the results of the study, Naked neck (NN) was recorded with the highest (70.41) percentage of motile sperm cells, sperm density (678.00) and sperm count (2.99), whereas frizzle (FR) had the highest value of viable sperm cells (81.25) and pH mean value of 6.91, respectfully. The P-value of 0.559 suggests that the observed differences in semen quality are not statistically significant among the tested phenotypes. It was recommended that Moringa leaf extracts do not have deleterious effects on semen quality parameters.