Investigation of conception rates achieved with the transfer of sexed and unsexed bovine embryos

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the conception rates achieved with the transfer of in-vivo derived sexed and unsexed Holstein bovine embryos to appropriate recipients and to determine the accuracy of nonelectrophoretic PCR sexing. Seven-day-old embryos were derived in vivo by the nonsurgical flushing of the uterus. Before being vitrified and frozen some of the embryos obtained were sexed, while others were not sexed and were maintained as the control group. After thawing, the sexed and unsexed embryos were transferred to 23 and 21 bovine recipients, respectively. The conception rates achieved with the transfer of the sexed and unsexed embryos were 30.4% (7/23) and 42.9% (9/21), respectively. The difference between conception rates achieved in the 2 groups was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). For the sexed embryos the conception rates achieved with the transfer of male and female embryos were 27.2% (3/11) and 33.3% (4/12), respectively The accuracy of embryo sexing with nonelectrophoretic PCR was 66.6% for male embryos and 100% for female embryos postdelivery. The mean rate of accuracy determined for embryo sexing at the end of the study was 83.33%.