Background Vertical integration of the broiler industry allows producers to combine different biosecurity and sanitation practices, housing technologies, and feeding regimens to improve food safety. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence and distribution of Salmonella, to determine the source of Salmonella contaminants, and to reveal the relationships between isolates at ea...

Infections in broilers and broiler breeders by Enterococcus cecorum, causing clinical disease, have increasingly been described in various countries in the Northern Hemisphere over the past decade. This case report describes an outbreak of enterococcal-associated vertebral osteoarthritis (EVOA) in male broiler breeders in several flocks in South Africa. Male birds aged 4 and 9 weeks displayed t...

A study was conducted to test the effects of dietary energy intake on reproduction in genetically similar broiler breeder males and on the subsequent growth of their progeny. Fifty-nine 1-d-old pedigree broiler breeder male chicks were raised to breeding age. At 33 wk of age, 33 males were chosen and placed in one of three groups of 11 males per group and fed either 370, 330, or 290 kcal per bi...

The effects of in ovo Peptide YY (PYY) administration on growth and feed conversion ratios in a commercial broiler line were investigated. Six hundred Ross male x Cobb female eggs were administered either 0.9% saline (control) or 600 microg/kg egg weight PYY in ovo at Day 18 of incubation. On day of hatching, 210 birds from each treatment group were randomly placed by sex into pens. Body weight...

Diets containing low-quality durum wheat (716 g/kg) for production of pasta were used to feed male broiler chicks. The efficacy of xylanase supplementation and the impact of xylanase inhibitors on losses in exogenous enzyme activity were analyzed. Birds fed on the basal diet, not supplemented with recombinant xylanases or Roxazyme G, reached a BW of 1,509 g with a feed conversion ratio of 1.77 ...

Spondylitis is a reemerging epidemic spinal infection in male broiler chickens (5 to 7 weeks of age) as well as broiler breeder roosters (15 to 18 weeks of age). Among various causative agents, Enterococcus species and in particular E. cecorum, a gram-positive bacterium as a gastrointestinal flora of birds, have mostly been isolated. On late September 2015, a number of 10 weeks old roosters wit...

Genetic selection for high yield in primary broiler breeder males may result in skeletal modifications that impede sperm transfer upon mating. In addition, fluctuating asymmetry (FA) in bilateral traits has been shown to reliably indicate male reproductive potential in some avian species. The goal of this study was to determine if physical variation due to genetic selection and FA could explain...

________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract The effect of photostimulation of male broiler breeders (n = 144) to different photoperiods (8-h control and 9, 9.5, 10, 10.5, 11, 11.5, 12, 12.5, 13, 14 and 18 h) applied at 20 weeks of age, on age at first semen production, testis weights, as predicted by comb area, and semen characteristics at the repor...

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the struggling behavior of shackled broiler chickens may be positively related to compression of the shank and the probable associated discomfort: birds with large shanks tend to struggle more violently than do those with smaller shanks. Males are generally heavier and have thicker shanks than females. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that, because the leg ga...