Artificial insemination practice in British United Turkeys: a report in Iran

No domestic availability to breeder turkey stocks and turkey hatching eggs prompted the present experiment that aimed to evaluate the feasibility of a conventional artificial insemination (AI) procedure in British United Turkey (BUT) for the first time in Iran. Broiler turkeys were restrictedly fed, grown for 46 weeks, and used for the current study (10 turkey toms and 24 turkey hens in total). After a 3 week period of habituating the toms to abdominal massage, the pooled semen was used for insemination after the dilution in sterilized and homogenized low-fat milk (at the ratio of 1 to 6). The hens were inseminated (14:00 h) and hatching eggs were collected (n = 148). All the eggs were broken open to assess the fertility rate. Although being lower than the conventional average fertility rate noticed for breeder turkeys in the production manuals (91%), a fertility rate of 61.5% was obtained. The present report provided a preliminary data on the feasibility of the conventional procedure used in chickens to artificially inseminate the turkey, using low-fat milk as a simple available extender. The present findings might also be promising to the future establishment of turkey breeder enterprise in Iran.