Commercial poultry production management practices have been under increased public scrutiny driven by concerns for food safety and animal welfare. Within the United States, wood shavings and raised plastic floors are common flooring systems used in duck production. It is intuitive that each flooring type would present different management challenges influencing physical characteristics of grow...

A study was conducted to evaluate effects of alfalfa meal on growth performance and gastrointestinal tract development of growing layer ducks to provide evidence for application of alfalfa meal in the duck industry. Two hundred and fifty-six healthy Shaoxing 7-wk old growing layer ducks were selected and randomly allocated to 1 of 4 dietary treatments based on corn and soybean meal and containi...

BACKGROUND Newcastle disease (ND) caused by virulent Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is an acute, highly contagious and fatal viral disease affecting most species of birds. Ducks are generally considered to be natural reservoirs or carriers of NDV while being resistant to NDV strains, even those most virulent for chickens; however, natural ND cases in ducks have been gradually increasing in recen...

Wild waterfowl, including ducks, are natural hosts of influenza A viruses. These viruses rarely caused disease in ducks until 2002, when some H5N1 strains became highly pathogenic. Here we show that these H5N1 viruses are reverting to nonpathogenicity in ducks. Ducks experimentally infected with viruses isolated between 2003 and 2004 shed virus for an extended time (up to 17 days), during which...

The present work was initiated to study the incidence, morphology and molecular identification of Cryptosporidium spp. infecting ducks. Incidence of Cryptosporidium spp. in ducks was 39.9 % (365 out of 915 ducks). Seasonal incidence showed that the highest rate was in winter (74.6%) while the lowest one was in autumn (7.1%). Cryptosporidium spp. oocysts were spherical to ovoid in shape with smo...

Previous work suggests domestic poultry are important contributors to the emergence and transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza throughout Asia. In Poyang Lake, China, domestic duck production cycles are synchronized with arrival and departure of thousands of migratory wild birds in the area. During these periods, high densities of juvenile domestic ducks are in close proximity to mig...

Indigenous ducks play a vital role in sustainable livelihood of the poor duck farmers. In Tamil Nadu, two popular indigenous duck varieties viz., Sanyasi and Keeri are being reared traditionally by the duck farmers under nomadic system. In the same way, Kuttanad ducks are popular in Kerala and Assam ducks are popular in Assam. The present research work was undertaken to study the genetic distan...

The similarity of the louse faunas of flamingos and ducks has been used as evidence that these two groups of birds are closely related. However, the realization that ducks actually are more closely related to Galliformes caused many workers to reinterpret this similarity in parasite faunas as host switching from ducks to flamingos. Recent unexpected phylogenetic results on the relationships of ...

Controversy has developed as to whether or not pin-metered water lines or water troughs are more appropriate for Pekin ducks. We hypothesized that water troughs would show improved duck body conditions and environmental quality compared to pin-metered water lines. To test this hypothesis, we housed ducks in 2 barns, one with water lines and one with water troughs. Water troughs were constructed...

The purpose of this study was to identify Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) gene mutation West Sumatera Pitalah ducks. This used blood samples from 50 ducks (5 males and 45 females). Extraction analized by Kit iNtRON Biotechnology amplification DNA extraction the primer with fragmen target 318 bp. Sequencing 1st Base Singapore product Dnastar. Based on result is ducks.
 Key Words: FSH, Ge...