Impact of food deprivation on ova transport 49 Ta bl e 1 . Interval from ovulation to ﬁrst morning meal (f.m.m) after ovulation = start of treatment, and from ovulation to slaughter, ovulation rate (no. of corpora lutea) and recovery rate (no. of ova found / no.of corpora lutea) (Mean ± SEM). C-group 10.5 ± 2.1 42.3 ± 1.9 14.6 ± 1.1 77.7 ± 6.4 Interval from ovulation to f.m.m (h) Interval from ovulation to slaughter (h) Ovulation rate Recovery rate (%) the SAS package (SAS Institute Inc. 1989). The statistical model included the effect of group, sows within group, 12 h period and the interac- tion between group and period. Sow within group was used as error of term. Results Recovery and distribution of ova There was no signiﬁcant difference between the 2 groups in ovulation rate, ova recovery rate, time elapsed from ovulation to start of treat- ment/ﬁrst morning meal or ovulation to slaugh- ter (Table 1). The distribution of ova in the isthmus and the uterine horn differed signiﬁ- cantly between the 2 groups (Table 2). The E-group sows had a signiﬁcantly (p = 0.05) higher frequency of ova in the proximal and middle isthmus compared to the C-group, while C-group sows had a signiﬁcantly (p = 0.01) higher frequency of ova in the distal part of the isthmus and in the uterus. The ova in the E- group had on average passed 1.4 segments at time of slaughter while in the C-group ova had E-group 10.5 ± 1.9 45.0 ± 1.6 15.6 ± 1.1 78.9 ± 3.8 p-value 1.0 0.3 0.5 0.9 passed 3.0 segments on average which was sig- niﬁcantly (p = 0.001) longer. Hormones and blood serum metabolites There was no difference in the pre-fasting (-14 to 0 h) plasma level of insulin between the C- group (11.5 ± 2.7 µU/ml) and the E-group (11.3 ± 1.8 µU/ml) (Fig. 1). The plasma level of insu- lin for the E-group sows decreased during the fasting period to an average of 6.4 ± 0.6 µU/ml which was signiﬁcantly different from the C- group levels of 13.1 ± 3.5 µU/ml (P <0.001) during the same period. The serum levels of free fatty acids were signiﬁcantly (p = 0.01) higher in the E-group (0.49 ± 0.09) compared with the C-group (0.16 ± 0.04) after start of food deprivation (Fig. 2). There were no signif- icant changes in the glucose and triglyceride levels before or after the start of food depriva- tion and there were no signiﬁcant differences between the groups (Figs. 3 and 4 respectively). P r og e s t e r o n e . The plasma P concentration 4 in both the E-group and C-group increased af- Ta bl e 2 . The distribution of the total number and percent of ova in the isthmus and uterine horns at the time of slaughter. E-group C-group Proximal No. (%) of ova 35 (40) 4 (4) Isthmus- middle 36 (41.5) 18 (18) distal 16 (18.5) 47 (47) Uterine- horn 0 (0) 31 (31) Total 87 (100) 100 (100) Acta vet. scand. vol. 42 no. 1, 2001