A.H Ekeocha - Department of Animal Science, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

For this study, 15 young male rabbits of same breeds, with age range of 11-12 weeks old and weighing 1.0 ±0.2kg were used. These were randomly assigned to three treatments, each consisting of five rabbits per treatment. The treated groups(Treatments B and C) and the control group (Treatment A)were injected intramuscularly with charcoal-extracted bovine follicular fluid (FF), charcoal extracted bovine testicular fluid (TF) and charcoal treated distilled water (DW) respectively, at the rate of 0.2ml per rabbit on every other day and on three different occasions. Duration of the treatment lasted six days. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA. After administration of the different treatments, body weight (BW), testes weight (TW) and histometric studies (HS) were conducted. Histometric studies included: seminiferous tubule diameter (STD), cellular elements (CE), stages of the cycle of seminiferous epithelium (CSE), determination of daily sperm production (DSP) and daily sperm production per gram testis (DSP/g). Figures obtained pertaining to their weights showed that they grew significantly over their initial weights with animals treated with TF showing highly significant (p<0.01) weight increase of 0.78kg, which on the average represents 110.8% and 95% higher in weight gain than those of FF and control groups. There were no significant differences (p>0.05) in paired TW among the three different groups. STD of control group was significantly (p<0.01) higher (203.46?) than those of the treated groups. There were no significant (p>0.05) differences among the three different treatments in the frequency occurrence of stages 2 and 7 of the CSE, DSP and DSP/g testes. However, the frequency of occurrence of stages 1, 4 and 8 of the CSE differ significantly (p<0.01) between control group and treated groups. There was a highly significant spermatozoa decrease (p<0.01) in the treated groups when compared with control group and this supports the ability of the inhibin from bovine follicular and testicular fluids to inhibit the onset of active spermatogenesis.

Inhibin, Puberty, Male rabbits