A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PROGESTERONE METHOD ADMINISTRATION ROUTES IN IRAQI EWES AND IT’S EFFECT ON REPRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY

Abstract

This study was performed on 50 Iraqi ewes in Abu-Griab village in Baghdad province during the period 2009-2010 and their age from 2-4years and they had at least one parturition before 2-2.5 months, the ewes were divided randomly into 5 equal groups according to the hormonal regime used,1st group injected with 25mg progesterone I.M every 48hrs interval for 4 times followed by 750 IU of eCG injected I.M on day 9. 2nd and 3rd group were treated with intra vaginal sponges impregnated with 40 or 60 mg of medroxy acetate progesterone (MAP) respectively for 9 days. On day 9 the ewes of both groups were injected with 750 IU eCG /I.M after withdrawal of vaginal sponges directly. 4th group were drenched daily with 50 mg progesterone (as pilots) for 8 successive days and on day 9 injected with 750 IU eCG /I.M while 5th group (control group) were injected with normal saline and kept at the same circumstances. After day 9, the ewes of all groups mentioned above were mixed with rams for 7 days to ensure mating. The results revealed that 90% of all groups showed estrus behavior after day 9 with significant variation in the period of response in each group and as follows 5.16±1.26 days , 3.42±1.1 days , 3.57±1.24 days , 5.32±1.81 days and 58.36±9.6 days in the 1st , 2nd , 3rd ,4th and 5th group respectively. While the pregnancy rate was recorded 70% in treated groups. However the percentage of dystocia was 16.67%. the result may indicate that there was no effect of using hormonal treatments on the nature of parturition in spite of getting 28-6-50% twinning rate for the treated groups compared to 12.5% in the control group and there results indicated no effect on the viability of the offspring (90.4% for alive and 9.6 for dead ). It was concluded that the using of progesterone in different routes gave a good result in estrus synchronization , pregnancy rate and shortened an estrum period in summer and increase twinning rate when it was administered mixing with eCG.

Keywords

ewe, progesterone, eCG