Pig fertility not affected by plant extract

New results from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences
(DJF) at the university reveal no adverse effects on sow or boar fertility. The
experiment was carried out in collaboration with Copenhagen University Hospital
and the Technical University of Denmark.

CCC
“We have
not been able to confirm the common conjecture that the plant growth regulator
chlormequat, also called CCC, has a detrimental effect on pig reproduction,”
explains senior scientist Martin Tang Sørensen from the Department of Health,
Welfare and Nutrition at DJF.
The study included both boars and sows. The
boars were exposed to CCC throughout their lives including the foetal stage, as
their mothers were given CCC-enriched feed from the day they were
inseminated.

Weaning
After weaning, the boars
continued receiving CCC in their feed until the end of the experiment. The
intake of CCC by the animals was at the maximum permitted level for
humans.
There was no sign of boar semen quality having deteriorated in terms
of either sperm count, sperm activity or the ability of the sperm to fertilise
compared with the sperm from boars in a control group. Neither could scientists
establish any adverse effects of CCC on sows.

Related
websites:
University of Aarhus
Technical University of Denmark

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