Abstract   

These studies were conducted to determine the effect of various factors i.e. age, size of the ovary, presence or absence of corpus luteum (CL) and the season affecting the oocytes harvesting from ovaries of slaughtered buffaloes. Follicular oocytes were harvested from 2-6mm diameter follicles by scouring the ovarian surface in modified tyrode lactate medium TL-Hepes supplemented with 20% oestrus buffalo serum, sodium pyruvate and gentamycin sulphate. The effect of season, age and size of the ovary on the harvesting of oocytes was non-significant, while the absence of CL on the ovary had a significantly positive effect. The ovaries with CL yielded significantly lower good quality and total oocytes per ovary (2.85 ±0.35 and 3.94±0.28) than ovaries without CL (4.52 ±0.52 and 5.90±0.39).