Seminal Plasma Supplementation at Insemination Programs Offspring Performance in First Lactation Cattle

Gabriela A. Macay¹, Tomas D. Gonzalez², Willian G. Ortiz¹, Peter J. Hansen¹, and John J. Bromfield¹

1. Department of Animal Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

2. Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

 

Abstract Text:

Seminal plasma is a survival medium required to transport sperm cells for insemination. In cattle, embryo transfer and artificial insemination either eliminate or reduce maternal exposure to seminal plasma. Interestingly, maternal exposure to seminal plasma may promote improved pregnancy outcomes in some mammals. While supplementation of seminal plasma at artificial insemination does not increase pregnancy rates in cattle, birth weight of heifer calves is increased by 5.2%. The performance of these heifer calves as adults is currently unknown. We hypothesized that intrauterine infusion of seminal plasma at insemination would improve reproductive efficiency, health, and productive performance of female F1 offspring. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed the reproductive and productive performance of 215 female F1 offspring conceived in the presence of seminal plasma (n = 104) or saline control (n = 111). Seminal plasma did not affect age at first insemination (391 days ± 2.2 vs. 389.1 ± 2.4), pregnancy per artificial insemination (2.1 ± 0.1 vs. 2.1 ± 0.1) or age at first conception (423.8 days ± 4.4 vs. 422.2 ± 5.0) in female F1 offspring. After female F1 offspring calved for the first time, postpartum health records were evaluated for the first 21 d to assess the impact of seminal plasma (n = 99) or saline (n = 107) exposure at conception. The incidence of metritis (19.2% vs. 20.6%), hypocalcemia (1.0% vs. 0.0%), retained fetal membranes (5.0% vs. 2.3%), ketosis (6.0% vs. 3.7%), and displaced abomasum (1.0% vs. 0.0%) in female F1 offspring were not affected by seminal plasma. Reproductive performance of female F1 offspring during the first lactation, including days until pregnancy (107.9 days ± 5.4 vs. 116.1 ± 6.0) and pregnancy per artificial insemination (1.9 ± 0.1 vs. 1.9 ± 0.1), were not affected by seminal plasma. In addition, female F1 offspring conceived in the presence of seminal plasma were retained in the herd longer (P = 0.032) during the first lactation than controls (266.7 ± 14.1 days vs. 230.8 ± 12.5). Milk production of F1 offspring was evaluated for 301 d of the first lactation. Amazingly, F1 offspring conceived in the presence of seminal plasma (n = 80) produced 2.5 kg per day more (P = 0.014) milk during first 301 d of lactation (33.6 kg ± 0.7 vs. 31.1 ± 0.6) than control group (n = 89). This difference results in an estimated increase of 752.5 kg of milk if F1 cows were conceived in the presence of seminal plasma. This is the first study to report the long-term effects of seminal plasma supplementation at insemination on offspring performance in cattle. Here, maternal exposure to seminal plasma significantly increased milk production and lactation persistence in female F1 offspring. These results suggest that seminal plasma exposure at insemination can program postnatal physiology of cattle. While further research is needed to elucidate the mechanisms by which seminal plasma enhances lactation productivity, these findings could lead to the development of new semen extenders for use in dairy cattle to modulate postnatal performance with minimal intervention.