Gonadal and Extragonadal Sperm Reserves of Rabbit Bucks Experimentally Infected with Trypanosoma Brucei in Zaria, Nigeria

Gonadal and extragonadal sperm reserves of 20 adult male rabbits (bucks) were determined following an experimental infection with Trypanosoma brucei brucei over a 12 weeks study period. Ten rabbit bucks were infected with 1 ml of the parasites containing 1 X 106 trypanosomes, while the other 10 bucks served as control post infection. At the end of the experiment, two bucks from each of the groups were sacrificed and their testes were harvested for the determination of gonadal and epididymal spermatozoa reserves using a haemocytometer. The mean gonadal spermatozoa reserves of the control and the infected rabbit bucks were 247.6 ± 65.13 X106/g testis and 173.1 ± 26.88 X106/g testis respectively. The mean epididymal spermatozoa reserves of the control and the infected rabbit bucks were 108.2 ±38.22 X106/g and 19.25± 13.41 X106/g, respectively. The mean (±SEM) of the caput, corpus and cauda of the control rabbit bucks were 106.9±10.63 X106/g, 7.63±2.63 and 175.00±26.50 respectively, while the mean (±SEM) for the infected rabbit bucks were 46.00±7.25, 4.13±0.38 and 42.63±37.13 X106/g respectively.