Poultry production in South Africa, a so-called developing country, may be seen as a gradient between two extremes with highly integrated commercial enterprises with world-class facilities on one hand and unimproved rural chickens kept by households and subsistence farmers on the other. Although vaccination against Newcastle disease is widely applied to control this devastating infection, epizo...

The proximate composition and sensory evaluation of chicken patties incorporated with various levels of grey oyster mushroom (Pleurotus sajor-caju, PSC) were studied. The chicken patties were formulated with either 0%, 25% or 50% of fresh PSC. Results show chicken patty formulated with 25% PSC had protein content of 17.46% lower than the control patty which had 18.13% but it was not significant...

A study was conducted in northern Thailand to characterize Campylobacter spp isolated from chickens at farms, slaughterhouse, and chicken meat at fresh markets, and stools from chicken farmers as well as neighboring crop farmers who served as controls. The Campylobacter isolates were collected during the rainy months of the years 2000, 2001, and 2002. Standard methods were used for primary isol...

Sporulation and enterotoxin formation were determined for 17 strains of Clostridium perfringens type A in autoclaved chicken dark meat and in Duncan-Strong sporulation medium. The mean numbers of heat-resistant spores detected after 24 h at 37 degrees C were log10 1.13 to log10 7.64/ml in Duncan-Strong medium and log10 4.93 to log10 6.59/g in chicken. Of 17 strains, 7 formed enterotoxin in Dunc...

conclusions these findings illustrated the presence and persistence of clonal groups of mrsa strains, in chicken meat in isfahan, iran, that serve as reservoirs to disseminate bacteriophage encoded enterotoxin and virulence agents. results all 116 isolated mrsa strains were discriminated into seven php types consisting of seven common types (cts) and were positive for meca gene. all isolates ha...

BACKGROUND Inorganic arsenic (iAs) causes cancer and possibly other adverse health outcomes. Arsenic-based drugs are permitted in poultry production; however, the contribution of chicken consumption to iAs intake is unknown. OBJECTIVES We sought to characterize the arsenic species profile in chicken meat and estimate bladder and lung cancer risk associated with consuming chicken produced with...

For decades, low doses of antibiotics have been used widely in animal production to promote growth. However, there is a trend to reduce this use of antibiotics in feedstuffs, and legislation is now in place in Europe to prohibit their use in this way. As a consequence, economically important diseases, such as necrotic enteritis (NE) of chickens, that are caused by Clostridium perfringens have b...

A practical class using clicker training of chickens to apply knowledge of how animals learn and practice skills in animal training was added to an undergraduate course. Since attitudes to animals are related to their perceived intelligence, surveys of student attitudes were completed pre- and post- the practical class, to determine if (1) the practical class changed students' attitudes to chic...

The history of the introduction and dispersal of village chickens across the African continent is a subject of intense debate and speculation among scholars. Here, we synthesize and summarise the current scientific genetic and nongenetic knowledge in relation to the history of the species on the continent. Sociocultural, linguistic, archaeological and historic data all suggest a complex history...