Vle CONG. INTERN. REPROD. ANIM. INSEM. ARTIF., PARIS, 1968, VOL. II

A dvancement of artificial insemination programs in developing countries
through the use of coconut milk extender (CME).

C . NORMAN, West Virginia University, Morgantown, Wi Vai T UESSiaAT
Y . UDAGAWA, M. BIEDMA and O. BOJANOVICH, Paraguay

D. GROVE, West Germany

T.N. DOCKER, Uganda

A.V. AREVALO, El Salvador

N .H. JOSHI and A.V. RAI, India

The conventional methods of semen conservation which utilize low
temperatures are too costly and far too limited in their application to
provide the rapid expansion of artificial insemination breeding programs
needed to help cuttail serious shortages of protein in developing countries.
The use of a room temperature semen maintenance medium such as Co-
conut Milk Extender (CME) appears to be a much more: effective means
of distributing superior livestock germ plasm widely and inexpensively.
The increased availability of superior germ plasm for artificially breed-
ing low milk praducers can significantly raise the potential of succeeding
generations of cows for producing larger yields of better quality dairy
products. In addition to its principal function of increasing the avail-
ability of good quality semen from indigenous bulls in developing coun-
tries at low cost, CME can also be used for the importation of semen
w ithout costly refrigeration from proven sires located in other countries.
Recent pilot experiments have shown that CME's usefulness can be en-
larged in a number of other ways. In Paraguay (1) and more recently in
El Salvador (2), some limited success has been achieved in fertilizing
cows with sperm which had been re-extended and kept in CME for as
long as 72 hours at room temperature after they had been frozen in
liquid nitrogen. In West Gerrmany semen in CME prepared with recon-
stituted 2-3 year old lyophylized coconut milk gave conception rates
comparable to and in some cases, better than, conventional refrigerated
extenders (3).

M ATERIAL AND METHODS. Coconut Milk Extender was prepared in
advance as previously described (4), and kept in the refrigerator until
needed. Following the collection and evaluation of bull semen, the neat
semen was diluted with CME which had first been brought to ambient
temperature. The final live sperm concentration was usually 15 x 106
sperm /ml. The extended semen was poured into 2 ml. plastic vials, and
despatched to technicians by post or car in insulated jiffy bags. Vials
were stored in the dark at room temperatures until used for insemination.
For extending thawed semen which had been frozen in liquid nitrogen
the following procedure was used. Vials removed from the liquid nitro-
gen refrigerator were immediately thawed at 20°C. Thawed, pooled
liquid semen from the same bull was mixed with CME in a ratio of 1 part
C ME to 2 parts of thawed semen. The sample was centrifuged, the

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