Technical note: Vitrification of goat embryos by the open pulled-straw method

The suitability of the open pulled-straw (OPS) method for vitrifying bovine embryos was tested for goat embryos. Of 14 does receiving OPS-vitrified em bryos, all became pregnant and 13 (93%) kidded. The corresponding values fo r an established conventional freezing program were 58% pregnant and 50% (6 /12) kidding. Overall embryo survival amounted to 64% (18/28) for OPS-vitri fied and 42% (10/24) for conventionally frozen embryos. All differences wer e statistically significant. It is concluded that OPS vitrification is a su itable method for cryopreserving caprine d-7 blastocysts.