The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the behaviour of fastand slow growing chickens, when the birds had access to the outdoors. Fifty of both 1-day-old male chicks of a laying hybrid ISA BROWN (IB) and broilers ROSS 308 (RS) were kept in two pens in the same building. In each group ten birds were marked with a colored spray. From three weeks of age the birds had access to the outdo...

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether two-week-old rapidly growing broiler chickens with high metabolic activity have an increased risk of the development of heart failure three to five weeks later. The incidence of cardiac arrhythmias was assessed in broiler chickens with either a relatively high carbon dioxide tension (PCO2) or a low PCO2 in their venous blood. Their elec...

The high incidence of meat of impaired quality poses a serious problem in the poultry industry. In recent years, the incidence of the pectoralis major muscle that appeared pale colored, remarkably hardened, and exudative, called "wooden breast" or "woody breast" has increased in slaughter houses. In the present study, 19-day-old Ross 308 broiler chickens affected (n = 10) and unaffected (n = 10...

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of ascites-related physiological and metabolic parameters in broiler chickens fed with different components of bentonite. Two hundred and seven days old Arian male chicks were allocated into five dietary treatment groups including 1) basal diet (control); 2) basal diet + 1% sulphated sodium bentonite (SSB); 3) basal diet + 1% non-processed sodi...

Objective: The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different levels of germinated barley on performance and egg quality in laying hen. Methods: One hundred and twenty laying hens, 44-weeks old, Lohmann LSL hens were used in this experiment. Birds were assigned randomly to the groups, each of which consisted of 20 birds (4 replicate cages each containing 5 birds). The experiment w...

To examine the effects of cimaterol (CIM) and its withdrawal on meat tenderness and carcass composition, 21-d-old broiler chickens (n = 288) were randomly assigned to one of nine treatments. For Treatments 1 through 6, birds were fed a control diet or a diet containing 1 ppm CIM until slaughter at 35, 42, or 49 d of age. Treatments 7 and 8 consisted of birds fed the CIM diet for 14 d and then w...

Low nutritive value and suitability of barley as a feedstuff for broilers is mainly due to its non-starch polysaccharides. An experiment was carried out to evaluate if diets high in barley alter the mechanisms responsible for the absorption of nutrients across the intestinal epithelium of broilers, using D-xylose absorption test. Thirty, 14-d old male broiler chicks (Ross 308) with similar body...

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of olive leaf (OL) on immune response and some blood metabolites of broiler chickens. A total of 400 one-day-old broiler chicks (male and female) were randomly assigned to 5 experimental treatments with 4 replicates of 20 birds each. Birds of different treatments were given diets containing 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1% OL powder from 14 to 4...

A total of 150 day old female chickens (Ross 308) were randomly allocated to 2 groups with 5 replicate and 15 chicks in each replicate to determine the effects of cold induced ascites on performance, antioxidant status, blood enzyme activities and bone metabolism. The two experimental treatments were: 1) chicks that reared under normal temperature (NT) and 2) chicks that reared under cold tempe...