In recent years, egg production has had an intense growth in Brazil, and Brazilian consumption per capita significantly increased the last decade. To reduce sanitary financial risks, decisions regarding health status of flock must be made based on objective criteria. Our aim was to determine main “input” variables for prediction performance commercial laying breeder flocks using ANN model. The ...

The breeder thermal performances under a purge line break have been analyzed for two blanket design options: a blanket design using a packed breeder bed and a blanket design using a sintered breeder product. Under a purge line break open to a vacuum environment, the packed bed breeder temperature exceeds its operating temperature limit at a faster rate than that of the sintered breeder blanket ...

Effect of photoperiod on age and BW at attainment of mature semen production was examined in males of lines selected for high (HL) and low (LL) threshold BW at onset of lay, and in males of a commercial Cornish male line (MC), a commercial broiler breeder female line cross (BX), and a commercial layer cross (LX). Photoperiod treatments were: I, increasing natural spring light; and D, steadily d...

Detailed three-dimensional neutronics analysis has been performed for ITER with the U.S. solid breeder blanket utilizing sintered product materials for both the breeder and multiplier. The overall tritium breeding ratio is 0.81 with two outboard breeder zones and 0.89 for the three outboard breeder zone design option. The total reactor thermal power is 1150 MW in the technology phase.

An experiment was conducted to assess how hatching performance is affected by breeder age and egg holding environment during short-term storage. Response variables analyzed were egg weight loss up to 18 d of incubation, viability (hatchability of fertile eggs), embryonic mortality, hatching time, and weight of male and female chicks, at hatching and at the end of incubation. The trials involved...

This study determined the availability of glycerol as indicator of energy status of broiler chicks during hatch, and the behavior of chicks subjected to three fasting times with reference to production standards. Chicks originating from 31 and 54 week-old Ross breeder flocks were utilized. Samples of liver were taken from chicks during the following time periods: pipping of eggshell, wet hatch,...

While measures to control carcass contamination with Salmonella at the processing plant have been implemented with some success, on-farm interventions that reduce Salmonella prevalence in meat birds entering the processing plant have not translated well on a commercial scale. We determined the impact of Salmonella vaccination on commercial poultry operations by monitoring four vaccinated and fo...

Breeder turnover can influence population growth in social carnivores through changes to group size, composition and recruitment. Studies that possess detailed group composition data that can provide insights about the effects of breeder turnover on groups have generally been conducted on species that are not subject to recurrent annual human harvest. We wanted to know how breeder turnover affe...