Dietary supplementation with Ginger, Bindii, and Carob improves post-thaw sperm quality and fertility potential in post-peak breeder roosters.

The current study was designed to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with Ginger (Zingiber officinale), Bindii (Tribulus terrestris), and Carob (Ceratonia siliqua) on reproduction parameters of cryopreserved sperm of breeding roosters during the post-peak phase. For this purpose, 20 roosters were assigned to four equal groups and fed the following diets for 60 days: the control group (basal diet with no herbal plant supplementation), and the other groups received Bindii (1.5 g/kg diet), Carob (15 g/kg diet), and Ginger (10 g/kg diet) powders as feed additives. After 60 days of dietary supplementation, semen was collected twice weekly for four weeks. The qualified semen samples were pooled, diluted, frozen and stored for quality evaluation. After thawing, sperm motility, membrane integrity, abnormal morphology, mitochondrial activity, acrosome integrity, viability, apoptosis status, lipid peroxidation, DNA fragmentation, ROS concentration, fertility potential, and hatchability were evaluated. Results showed that feeding all plant-based dietary supplements resulted in higher (P ≤ 0.05) sperm total motility, progressive motility, viability, membrane integrity, mitochondrial activity, and acrosome integrity than the control group. Moreover, groups fed herbs showed lower (P ≤ 0.05) lipid peroxidation, secondary apoptosis, DNA fragmentation and ROS concentration than those fed only the basal diet. Fertility rates during artificial insemination were significantly higher (P ≤ 0.05) for roosters fed all herbs than those receiving a diet without plant-based dietary supplementation. In conclusion, the application of Bindii, Carob, and Ginger as herbal additives in a rooster diet could be an effective method to improve the quality and fertilizing ability of frozen-thawed semen.