Enhancing host immunity is an effective way to reduce morbidity in chickens. Heterophil/lymphocyte (H/L) ratio associated with disease resistance birds. Chickens different H/L levels show resistances. However, the utility of as indicator immune function remains be analyzed. In this study, a directional breeding chicken line (Jingxing yellow chicken) was constructed, which has been bred for 12 g...

A total of 240 Ross 308 day-old male broiler chicks within a completely randomized design were used in this experiment to evaluate the effects of dietary inclusion of turmeric powder and cinnamon powder on performance and some immune responses of broiler chickens. Dietary treatments were as follow: a corn-soybean meal basal diet (control); basal diet + 10 ppm avilamycin; basal diet + 2.5 g/Kg t...

Among 500 students seen at a university health service for illnesses resembling infectious mononucleosis (IM), the diagnosis of IM was established in 124 (25%) on the basis of the initial presence or subsequent emergence of the spectrum of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) antibodies characteristic of a primary EBV infection. Of these 124 patients, 113 had an EBV-specific antibody pattern in the initial...

The neuroendocrine system controls animals' adaptability to their environments by releasing psychotropic compounds such as catecholamines [epinephrine (EP), norepinephrine (NE), and dopamine (DA)], corticosterone (CORT), and serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine or 5-HT). Changes of these neuroendocrine compounds have been used as biomarkers of animals' stress responses associated with their well-bein...

Previously conducted studies using two chicken lines (A and B) show that line A birds have increased resistance to a number of bacterial and protozoan challenges and that heterophils isolated from line A birds are functionally more responsive. Furthermore, when stimulated with Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists, heterophils from line A expressed a totally different cytokine and chemokine mRNA ex...

This study examined the prebiotic effects of oligosaccharides extract from palm kernel expeller (OligoPKE) on growth performance, cecal microbiota and immune response of broiler chickens. A total of ninety 1-day-old broiler chicks (Cobb-500) were randomly allocated to three treatment groups of six pens (replicates) with five birds per pen. Dietary treatments were: (i) basal diet as control, (ii...

II ABBIT HETEROPHIL LEUKOCYTES contain three distinctive types of granules, which have recently been designated primary, secondary, and tertiary granules according to their chronological appearance during cell development.’ The primary and secondary granules were conventionally designated azurophil and specific granules, respectively. Primary granules are present exclusively in early heterophil...

Body condition indices are increasingly applied in conservation to assess habitat quality, identify stressed populations before they decline, determine effects of disturbances, and understand mechanisms of declines. To employ condition indices in this manner, we need first to understand their baseline variability and sources of variation. Here, we used crimson finches (Neochmia phaeton), a trop...

Human-induced forest modification can alter parasite-host interactions and might change the persistence of host populations. We captured individuals of two widespread European passerines (Fringilla coelebs and Sylvia atricapilla) in southwestern Germany to disentangle the associations of forest types and parasitism by haemosporidian parasites on the body condition of birds. We compared parasite...