Today Turkeys are reared extensively for their meat. Traditionally they were mainly reared for Christmas, however, today the market demand spans throughout the year. Artificial insemination is the technique that is used exclusively for fertilisation of turkeys today this is because natural mating has become increasingly unsuccessful.
This is why in the turkey breeding industry considerable interest exists in prolonging the viability and fertilising capacity of turkey sperm. By extending the semen immediately after collection the fertilizing ability of the spermatozoa can be maintained for up to 20 hours compared to 1hour unextended. By extending the semen we can also decrease the size of the insemination doses used and since turkey semen has a very high concentration this will result in a larger number of doses per ejaculate.
