IN-VITRO CULTURE OF SILVER FOX EMBRYOS

This experiment was designed to establish in vitro culture methods for silver fox embryos in order to develop the methods for evaluation of the post-thaw viability of frozen embryos in future studies. Artificia lly inseminated silver fox females were killed humanely on predetermin ed days after insemination and oviducts and uteri were flushed for emb ryos. The embryos were cultured in modified TCM 199 or in the same med ium supplemented with silver fox oviductal tissue suspension for varyi ng periods, from 6 days to 3 weeks. A total of 60 embryos was recovere d. Only embryos beyond the 8-cell stage up to expanded blastocysts dev eloped in vitro (28 % of all embryos). Early stage blastocysts develop ed most reliably and were of the best quality.