Improvement of sperm quality after implementation of a HACCP system in a bull semen production Center

Bull semen production centers (SPC) have satisfactory control of sperm quality, but commonly lack standardized quality control for hygiene procedures. This study assessed the impact of the implementation of a hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) system in a bull SPC, comparing semen quality and microbial counts on various steps of semen processing, before and after the HACCP implementation. Samples from artificial vagina (AV), flexible tubes from the straw filling machine (FT), fresh semen (FS), frozen semen (FZS), step-1 freezing extender (EA), step-2 freezing extender (EB) and packed semen (PS) were collected before and after HACCP implementation to evaluate counts of colony forming units (CFU). FZS sperm motility, membrane and acrosome integrity from both periods were also evaluated. The number of CFU/mL at distinct collection points was transformed to the logarithmic scale and subsequently compared between the periods before and after the HACCP implementation using analysis of variance, with comparison of means by the Tukey test. Post-thawing sperm motility, membrane integrity and acrosome integrity were compared between periods using the Wilcoxon ranks sum test for nonparametric data, also due to lack of normality. All analyzes were conducted with Statistix® (2013). Compared to the previous period, lower CFU (P 0.05). Improvement after HACCP implementation compared to previous period were observed (P u003c0.0001), respectively, for post-thawing sperm motility (57.7 ± 1.3 and 33.7 ± 1.0), membrane integrity (85.3 ± 1.4 and 47.9 ± 1.6) and acrosome integrity (81.6 ± 3.6 and 61.4 ± 3.0). Thus, the implementation of a HACCP system in a bull SPC resulted in the production of high-quality semen doses with reduced microbial contamination.