Physiological features of cats native sperm of different breeds

Abstract

Despite the development of felinology throughout the world, the domestic cat remains the least studied in terms of the physiology of reproduction. In foreign countries, certain issues of the physiology of reproduction of cats are studied in terms of sperm quality, ovulation in cats, artificial insemination with freshly diluted and frozen-thawed sperm. Despite this, the data of foreign researchers on the quality of native sperm in cats are very contradictory. For the first time in Russia, the physiological characteristics of native sperm of cats of various breeds of domestic selection have been studied. The studied cats belonged to 5 breeds: Maine Coon, British Shorthair, Sphinx, Siberian, Bengal. Each breed had 3 cats, aged from 2 to 5 years. Sperm was collected from cats by electro-ejaculation once every three days. The first three obtained ejaculates from each cat were not taken into account in the study, since in this way the males were introduced into the sexual regime. The ejaculate volume was the highest in Maine Coon cats, which is 0.29 ml more (p˂0.001) from the British Shorthair breed, 0.42 ml more (p˂0.001) from Sphynx males, 0.23 ml more (p˂0.01) from the Siberian breed and 0.44 ml more (p˂0.001) from the Bengal breed. The best sperm activity was observed by us in Bengal cats, which is 0.89 points more than the Maine Coon breed, 1.22 points better than the British Shorthair breed, 1.66 points more (p˂0.05) from the Sphynx and 0.44 points more than Siberian cats. The sperm concentration was the highest in Maine Coon cats, which is 142 million more (p˂0.001) from the British Shorthair breed, 88.45 million more (p˂0.01) from Sphynx cats, 175 million more (p˂0.001) from the Siberian breed and 221.89 million more (p˂0.001) from Bengal cats of domestic selection.