EVIDENCE OF BACTERIAL CONTAMINATION IN THE FROZEN BOVINE SEMEN

Abstract

Artificial insemination (AI) has been a successful method that is used for the breeding of domestic animal species around the globe. However, the semen may get contaminated with microbial agents during processing and storage of the semen and may cause infertility and/or local infections in the genital tract. The bacterial contamination of frozen semen from local centers was investigated. The findings revealed that out of 100 frozen semen samples, 7 were found positive for the various bacterial isolates, while 93 were negative without any microbial growth. The positive samples examined, 5 (71.42) and 2 (28.57%) contained pure and mixed bacterial species. The identified bacterial species, Acinetobacter 1 (11.11%), Actinobacillus ligneirisi 2 (22.22%), Citrobacter 1 (11.11%), Micrococcus luteus 1 (11.11%), Pseudomonas aeroginosa 2 (22.22%), Staphylococcus epidermidis 1 (11.11%) and Staphylococcus intermedius 1 (11.11%) were present in frozen bovine semen samples. The findings of this study suggested the occurrence of bacterial species in the frozen bovine semen. Therefore, the frozen bovine semen should be screened out for microbial contamination before use for artificial insemination.