Transcervical Embryo Recovery in Korean Black Goats: A Preliminary Experiment

Four pluriparous Korean black goat does were superovulated with FSH and mated with fertile bucks. Anesthetized animals were placed in lateral recumbency, then size 8 Foley catheter was inserted into the uterus through the cervix under the vaginal speculum and the balloon was inflated to fix the catheter in the uterine body. The opposite end of the catheter was connected to a 3-way and a flushing medium was infused into the uterus. Modified Dubecco's PBS with 1% FBS was used as the flushing medium. Four goats were allocated in two groups depending on the type of medium infusion into uterus. Injection group; the flushing medium was injected into uterus and the infused medium was collected by to-and-fro method using a syringe. Gravity-flow group; the flushing medium was allowed to enter the uterus by gravity flow by lifting the medium bottle and drained out of the uterus into a collecting tube. All four goats had catheter inserted through the cervix and uteri flushed successfully. The volume (recovery rate) of recovered medium varied considerably from 87 ml/200 ml (43.5%) to 148 ml/160 ml (92.5%). Nine embryos/ova in total were recovered from Gravity-flow group goats. Although the embryo recovery rate was low, the possibility of a transcervical embryo recovery in Korean black goat had been proven in this preliminary experiment.