Comparison between the main techniques of sperm concentration analysis in bulls breeding soundness exams

Abstract

The sperm concentration in breeding soundness exams of bulls is the most variable in terms of amount of techniques. The three methods more used currently as routine are: the Neubauer's chamber, spectrophotometry and sperm densitometer. The three techniques show differences in velocity of execution and costs. This work had the objective to compare the three techniques. In this study were used 143 bulls semen samples. These samples were collected in Uberaba's farms from August 2007 till May 2008. The results were analyzed by: the descriptive statistics analysis, the Pearson’s Correlation Test and test of difference between averages for t test of Student. The values of averages were approximately 431´10⁶, 508´10⁶ and 398´10⁶ in spermatozoa for milliliter of semen, respectively for sperm densitometer, Neubauer's chamber and spectrophotometry. The analysis found a high correlation between the three techniques (r = 0,7904; 0,9143; 0,7099) (p<0,01). However, it was observed a significant difference between the average values of the Neubauer's chamber and spectrophotometry (p<0,05) but it was not found any difference between the sperm densitometer and the others (p>0,05). It was concluded that the sperm densitometer technique can be used in the evaluation of sperm concentration in bulls breeding soundness exams in the field, because it is faster that the Neubauer's chamber and lower cost comparing to the spectrophotometry and with the same security on the results.