An experiment was carried out to study the effect of different forms of wheat (airtight silo stored whole wheat, conventionally stored whole wheat, and ground wheat included in pellets) and dietary xylanase addition on production results and gastrointestinal characteristics of broiler chickens. Ileal viscosity, pancreatic digestive enzyme activities, and the composition and activity of the inte...

The objectives of the present study were to examine the level of radiocesium deposit in meat and edible organs of broiler chickens as well as to investigate efficiency of natural sepiolite in reducing Cs deposition in meat, liver and gizzard of alimentary contaminated broiler chickens. Broiler chickens (six weeks of age) were fed with the standard diet and each broiler was given a single oral d...

Organisms adjust their phenotype to fluctuating conditions of the environment and to changing internal demands. We report flexible responses of the gizzard and the small intestine of Japanese quail to a high-fibre diet. Switching from a standard diet to a high-fibre diet results in a highly significant increase in gizzard size, intestine length, mucosal surface, thickness of the intestinal musc...

The evolutionary function and maintenance of variation in animal personality is still under debate. Variation in the size of metabolic organs has recently been suggested to cause and maintain variation in personality. Here, we examine two main underlying notions: (i) that organ sizes vary consistently between individuals and cause consistent behavioural patterns, and (ii) that a more explorator...

We have analysed the membrane anchorage of plasma-membrane 5'-nucleotidase, an ectoenzyme which can mediate binding to components of the extracellular matrix. We demonstrated that the purified enzyme obtained from chicken gizzard and a human pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell line were both completely transformed into a hydrophilic form by treatment with phospholipases C and D, cleaving glycosylpho...

Gastrointestinal (GI) development is highly conserved across vertebrates. Although several transcription factors and morphogenic proteins are involved in the molecular controls of GI development, the interplay between these factors is not fully understood. We report herein the expression pattern of Sox9 during GI development, and provide evidence that it functions, in part, to define the pylori...

The NRC selenium (Se) requirement for broiler chicks is 0.15 μg Se/g diet, based primarily on weight gain and feed intake studies reported in 1986. To determine Se requirements in today's rapidly growing broiler chick, day-old male chicks were fed Se-deficient basal diets supplemented with graded levels of Se (0, 0.025, 0.05, 0.075, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0 μg Se/g) as Na2SeO3 (5/treat...

1. A cereal-based diet containing 7.6 mg copper/kg was fed ad lib. to laying hens for up to 48 d. Four other groups were given the control diet to which was added hydrated copper sulphate to provide 250, 500, 1000 and 2000 mg added Cu/kg. 2. Hens were killed on day 0 and after 3, 6, 12, 24 and 48 d. Records were kept of body-weight, food consumption, egg production and egg weight. 3. After slau...

Digestive capacity often limits food intake rate in animals. Many species can flexibly adjust digestive organ mass, enabling them to increase intake rate in times of increased energy requirement and/or scarcity of high-quality prey. However, some prey species are defended by secondary compounds, thereby forcing a toxin limitation on the forager's intake rate, a constraint that potentially canno...