is no unambiguous evidence that plumicolous feather mites chew holes in feathers; such damage is usually caused by feather lice. Also, it has been reported that feather mites of the great-spotted woodpecker (Dryobates major) and the hoopoe (Upupa epops) avoid white spots on the feathers and instead aggregate on melanized areas 5. Thus, as we stressed in our review 3 , extrapolating from lice to...

Two novel feather-degrading fungi belonging to Chrysosporium and Microsporum genus were isolated from poultry waste in Goa, India. The fungi produced extra cellular keratinolytic enzyme in a feather meal broth using chicken feather as a sole of carbon and nitrogen source. Maximum enzyme activity was obtained within 96 h (150 U/ml and 90 U/ml for Chrysosporium and Microsporum respectively) of cu...

In some birds, feather ornaments are expressed in nestlings well before sexual maturation, possibly in response to parental favouritism towards high-quality offspring. In species with synchronous hatching, in which nestling ornaments may vary more among than within broods, parents may use this information to adjust their parental allocation to the current brood accordingly. We tested this hypot...

The purpose of this trial was to evaluate the effects Punica granatum L. and Allium cepa peels aqueous cyclodextrin extracts on broiler chicks’ performance welfare status, as well meat chemical composition oxidative stability. A total 120 one-day-old male Ross-308 chicks were randomly allocated three treatments with four replicate pens (10 per pen). Broiler in control group fed typical commerci...


 Many differentially expressed genes associated with feather colour in quail embryos can be screened using RNA-seq technology. The aim of this study was to verify the accuracy RT-qPCR. transcriptome embryonic skin tissues quails were sequenced by Illumina HiSeq TM2000 sequencing platform. As a result, 2512 found. Among them, 950 up-regulated white-feather embryos, and 1562 down-regulated....

We investigated how exogenous and endogenous glucocorticoids affect feather replacement in European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) after approximately 56% of flight feathers were removed. We hypothesized that corticosterone would retard feather regrowth and decrease feather quality. After feather regrowth began, birds were treated with exogenous corticosterone or sham implants, or endogenous cort...

The structure and properties of chicken feather barbs makes them unique fibers preferable for several applications. The presence of hollow honeycomb structures, their low density, high flexibility and possible structural interaction with other fibers when made into products such as textiles provides them unique properties unlike any other natural or synthetic fibers. No literature is available ...

Feather pecking in domestic fowl is a behavioral abnormality that consists of mild or injurious pecking at feathers of conspecifics. Previously, it was shown that chicks from a high feather-pecking (HFP) and low feather-pecking (LFP) line of laying hens already differ in their propensity to feather peck at 14 and 28 days of age. As a first step in investigating a possible relationship between t...

Potentially, pathogenic bacteria are one of the main infective agents against which a battery of chemical and physical barriers has evolved in animals. Among these are the secretions by the exocrine uropygial gland in birds. The antimicrobial properties of uropygial secretions may prevent colonization and growth of microorganisms on feathers, skin and eggshells. However, uropygial gland secreti...

It was previously suggested that the flight ability of feathered fossils could be hypothesized from the diameter of their feather rachises. Central to the idea is the unvalidated assumption that the strength of a primary flight feather (i.e. its material and structural properties) may be consistently calculated from the external diameter of the feather rachis, which is the only dimension that i...