RELATIONSHIPS AMONG FERTILITY, SPERM STORAGE, AND SHELL QUALITY

White Leghorn hens (109, 50 wk of age) were used to determine the relationships among fertility, sperm storage and shell quality. The hens were artificially inseminated (AI) on 2 consecutive days with 100 million spermatozoa/insemination. Eggs were collected for 17 days and were classified as hard shell (HS), thin shell (TS) or shell-less (SL). Specific gravity (SG) was determined on HS eggs. All eggs were incubated for 3 days and broken out to determine fertility. The SL eggs were difficult to incubate; fertility was not obtained for these eggs. Hens producing eggs with SG < 1.070 showed a significant (P < 0.05) decrease in percent and duration of fertility. Specific gravity was significantly correlated with percent fertility, duration of fertility and fertile egg production. Following the fertility trial, 5 hens laying HS and 5 hens laying SL eggs were inseminated as previously described and were killed on the day after the 2nd insemination. The uterovaginal segments were excised, processed for histological evaluation and stained for oil red O to quantitate lipid or hematoxylin and eosin to show sperm distribution in uterovaginal sperm-host glands (UV-SHG). Histological examination of the UV-SHG showed that SL hens had a significantly higher percentage of empty glands than HS hens. There were no differences between HS and SL hens for UV-SHG lipid deposition.