Utilización de fotoperiodo artificial, melatonina exógena y/o efecto macho para la mejora de los parámetros reproductivos de caprinos mediterráneos

Abstract

The main aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of different treatments on the reproductive parameters during the non-breeding season in Mediterranean goats, including the use of exogenous melatonin, artificial long days and male effect. For this aim, five experiments were conducted. According to the obtained results we can conclude for Mediterranean goats, that the use of melatonin implants around the spring equinox and 3 months of artificial long days before a treatment with exogenous melatonin are able to induce reproduce activity in females and males during the non-breeding season. However, the treatment with three months of long days was not able to induce oestrous activity during the seasonal anoestrous and was less effective in terms of percentage of ejaculating or active males. Concerning the melatonin procedure, the higher reproductive performances were obtained when at least females were treated with melatonin.