Effect of an Organic Trace Mineral Premix on the Semen Quality, Testicular Morphology and Gene Expression Related to Testosterone Synthesis of Male Broiler Breeders

ABSTRACT In order to investigate the effect of organic trace minerals premix (OTM) on the reproductive performance of breeder roosters, a total of 240 San Huang roosters (23 weeks of age) were randomly divided into two treatments with six replicates of 20 roosters each. The first group (n = 120) was fed a basal diet containing an inorganic trace minerals premix (ITM) and the other group (n = 120) was fed the basal diet in which ITM was replaced by OTM. The experiment period was 22 weeks. Semen from one randomly-selected rooster per replicate was collected two weeks after the beginning of the e...