Influence of season on the quality of Malabari buck semen

The present study evaluated the semen quality parameters of Malabari bucks during pre-monsoon (March- May), south-west monsoon (June-September), post-monsoon (October-November) and winter (December-February) seasons. The semen ejaculates (n120) collected from five healthy adult Malabari bucks maintained at the Artificial Insemination Centre, Department of Animal Reproduction, Gynaecology and Obstetrics, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Pookode, Wayanad (11.5393 N and 76.0202 E) were used for the study. Average THI was found to be 74.79, 71.33, 71.29 and 68.86 in the respective seasons. The ejaculates were subjected to preliminary evaluation in terms of volume (mL), sperm concentration (millionsmL), progressive motility of spermatozoa (), viability (), morphological abnormalities (), acrosome integrity () and functional membrane integrity (). In all the four seasons, seminal plasma was subjected to SDS PAGE for protein profiling. There was significant decrease in the semen ejaculate volume (p