Compensatory ovarian hypertrophy is a widely studied biological phenomenon in animals. Conventional experimental approaches involving removal of one ovary using laparotomy, laparoscopic surgery, and colpotomy have the disadvantages of associated surgical risk, postoperative complications and economic losses due to culling. Recently, a new approach using transvaginal ultrasound guided aspiration for removal of follicles from one ovary (unilateral follicle ablation) has been developed for inducing compensatory response from the contralateral ovary in heifers. Apart from its advantages over the conventional methods in the study of compensatory ovarian response, the approach has several other potential applications in farm animal reproduction, especially in embryo transfer and pathological conditions affecting certain portions of the reproductive tract such as unilateral abnormalities of uterus and oviducts.
Compensatory Hypertrophy, Follicle Ablation, Ovary, Transvaginal, Ultrasound
