Table 4.
Effects of thyme essential oil on semen quality of male rabbits at 130 days of age.
| Items | Treatments (T) | SEM 1 | P Value | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NC 1 | PC 2 | 60 mg | 120 mg | 180 mg | T 4 | Lin 5 | Quad 6 | ||
| Semen quality | |||||||||
| Semen volume, ml | 0.52 d | 0.56 c | 0.61 b | 0.64 a | 0.65 a | 0.09 | 0.001 | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Abnormal sperm, % | 16.7 a | 15.4 ab | 12.6 bc | 11.9 cd | 11.2 d | 0.41 | 0.001 | 0.001 | 0.432 |
| Live sperm, % | 75.0 d | 75.4 d | 79.2 c | 81.6 b | 83.6 a | 0.63 | 0.001 | 0.001 | 0.458 |
| Semen pH, value | 7.11 | 7.09 | 7.10 | 7.11 | 7.10 | 0.03 | 0.990 | 0.965 | 0.853 |
| Forward motility, % | 55.1 c | 55.3 c | 65.7 b | 69.5 a | 70.8 a | 0.57 | 0.001 | 0.001 | 0.056 |
a–d Means within a row with different superscripts differ significantly at P < 0.05. 1 NC: basal diet as a negative control. 2 PC: a basal diet supplemented with an antibiotic as a positive control. 3 SEM: standard error of means. 4 T: NC, PC, and thyme essential oil treatments. 5,6 Lin and Quad: linear and quadratic responses, respectively, to thyme essential oil inclusion level considering NC (0 mg/kg thyme essential oil) as a control; PC was not included in this analysis.