Abstract: 【Objective】 The mechanism of royal jelly in improvement of reproduction performance of animals was explored in this study. 【Method】 Male Japanese white rabbits at the age of 2 months were intragastricaly administrated daily with royal jelly(RJ) at 0.2% and 0.1% of body weight in the high and low dosage group, respectively. Saline water was intragastricaly administrated at 0.1% of body weight in the control group. Rabbits were slaughtered after 80 days, and the body weight of rabbits，the main organ coefficients were calculated. The right testicle of each rabbit was used for morphological analysis after paraffin section preparation. Moreover, the density, motility and deformity rate of sperms were determined in each animal. 【Result】 During the testing period of 0-8 weeks, no significant difference was detected in the body weight of rabbits among the 3 groups (P＞0.05). However, the body weight was significantly greater in the treatment groups than the control group after 9-weeks treatment (0.01＜P≤0.05). The organ coefficients of testicular, hypothalamus and spleen were significantly different between the treatment and control group (P≤0.01). And no difference was found in the organ coefficients of spleen, lung, heart, liver, kidney and urinary bladder among the 3 groups (P＞0.05). The sperm density in RJ treatment groups was significantly higher than that in control group(P≤0.01). The semen motility of rabbits in the low dosage group was significantly higher than control group (P≤0.01), and the control group was significantly higher than the high dosage group (P≤0.01). After 80-days of RJ treatment, the spermatogenic epithelium cells of convoluted seminiferous tubules in testicular of male rabbit was significantly less, spermatogenic epithelium was fewer and scattered in the control group. Moreover, most of them contained in the center hole was primary and second apermatocytes. In comparison, the space of convoluted seminiferous tubules was less in the RJ treatment group because of sertolis cells and spermatozoa. Spermatogonia were affiliated on the basement membrane, the primary spermatocytes, spermatids, and spermatozoa were extended tightly into the center hole. The core was dying clearly, and most of containing in the center hole were spermatozoas. 【Conclusions】RJ intragastric administration can promote the development of male reproductive organs, like hypothalamus and testicular. And intragastirc administration with RJ at 0.1% of body weight can improve the motility and density of sperm in rabbits.

Key words: royal jelly, male rabbit, growth performance, reproduction performance