ABSTRACT
The general strategy of reproduction in poultry differs considerably from that of other domesticated animals. If fertile, the oviparous hen lays an egg containing an embryo of about 60,000 cells. Fertilization had taken place about 26 h before oviposition with participating sperm that had been inseminated days or, in turkeys, weeks before fertilization. These sperm were subjected to an intense selection process within the vaginal segment of the oviduct and then stored in the sperm storage tubules (SSTs) localized in the uterovaginal junction (UVJ). It is this capacity to store, then slowly but continuously release sperm from these SSTs that assures an adequate number of sperm at the site of fertilization in the absence of repeated copulations or insemination.
