BACKGROUND The levels and immunohistochemical localization of muscle carbonic anhydrase III (CA-III) in healthy chickens and in muscular dystrophia affected (DA) chickens show that the muscles of diseased animal undergo a progressive increase of enzyme activity. METHODS An enzyme-linked immunoassay was used to assess the CA-III levels in the muscles and other tissues from eight normal White L...

Received: Revised: Accepted: June 13, 2014 July 19, 2014 August 05, 2014 The use of haematology as an index of health status is well known, just like the use of erythrocyte osmotic fragility and heterophil-lymphocyte ratio (H:L) as biomarker of oxidative stress. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of molasses supplementation through drinking water on live weight gain, haematolog...

Research with adult mammals has shown that the diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT) related to the oxidation of macronutrients has a negative feedback on feed intake (FI), depending on the nutrient considered: proteins are combusted first, then carbohydrates and finally fat, corresponding to their satiating ability. However, previous studies revealed no significant differences in DIT between broile...

Excessive consumption of red meat is associated with various diseases including coronary heart diseases and cancer. Lower health-related problems of chicken meat, consumption of chicken meat, and mechanically deboned chicken meat (MDCM) have been increased due to their cheaper prices. Thereby, chemical, microbial, and physical causes of chicken meat losses and the safety aspects are needed to b...

Infection of animals with retroviruses frequently leads to immunosuppressed states. The immune status of chickens injected with the replication-defective avian erythroblastosis virus (AEV), with its naturally occurring subgroup B helper virus (avian erythroblastosis-associated virus; AEAV), was evaluated daily and compared to the immune status of age-matched uninfected control chickens. Spleen ...

The presence of Salmonella in chickens is a problem because poultry meat is recognized as a source of human salmonellosis. Fermented feed has characteristics like a high number of lactobacilli and high concentration of lactic acid, which could make chickens less susceptible for infection with Salmonella. Fermented feed might therefore prevent the colonization of chickens with Salmonella. Two st...

two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of phytase supplementation on layer hens and broiler chickens performance and compare the use of phytase nutrient equivalency values in feed formulation with those fed conventional diet. in the first ex-periment, 640 commercial broiler chicks were used from 11 to 49 days of age. the ex-perimental units were allocated at random to 4 dietary ...

Indigenous Tswana chickens are better adapted to prevailing environmental conditions and diseases than their exotic counterparts. They however exhibit slower growth rate and less mature final weight than their exotic counterparts. Crossbreeding of indigenous Tswana chickens with exotic chicken breeds can therefore be used as an alternative strategy to improve growth performance of indigenous Ts...

We assessed a scenario designed to mimic the imputation of full genome sequence data in White layer chickens, genotyped at medium (60K) density. Factors affecting accuracy were the size of the reference population, the level of the relationship between the reference and test populations and minor allele frequency of the SNP being imputed. Genotype imputation based on 22 or 62 carefully selected...