Rhodiola has long been used as a traditional medicine to increase resistance to physical stress in humans in Tibet. The current study was designed to investigate whether Rhodiola crenulata (R. crenulata) could alleviate the negative effects of hypoxia on broiler chickens reared in Tibet Plateau. The effect of supplementing crushed roots of R. crenulata on production performance, health and inte...

An experiment with 288 male (Ross 308) 1-d-old broilers was conducted to test the hypothesis that a coarse diet supplemented with butyric acid (BA) and fermentable carbohydrates (FC) improves performance of broilers with a poorly digestible protein source. The interaction effects of diet structure (fine or coarse), FC supplementation (with or without), and BA supplementation (with or without) i...

Two experiments (Exp.) were conducted to establish amino acid (AA) digestibility coefficients (DC) for broilers given corticosterone (CS)-induced stress using the apparent ileal digestibility assay. For Exp. 1, 192 Ross x Ross 708 male broilers were placed into 16 floor pens (12 birds/pen). For Exp. 2, 120 Ross x Ross 308 male broilers were placed into 10 floor pens (12 birds/pen). Pens contain...

An experiment was conducted to study the performance of broilers chicks (2 to 42 d of age) fed diets containing pearl millet (PM, Pennisetum typhoides), foxtail millet (FOM, Setaria italica) or finger millet (FIM, Elusine coracana) totally replacing (w/w) yellow maize (YM) with and with out supplementing non-starch polysaccharide (NSP) hydrolysing enzymes at the rate of 0.5 g/kg diet. Enzyme pr...

Phytate is not only an unavailable source of phosphorus (P) for broilers but it also acts as an anti-nutrient, reducing protein and mineral absorption, increasing endogenous losses and reducing broiler performance. The objective of this study was to investigate the anti-nutritional effects of phytate by including high levels of phytase in diets not severely limited in available P. A total of 76...

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of heat stress (HS) and methionine supplementation on the markers of stress and on the gene expression levels of uncoupling proteins (UCP), betaine-homocysteine methyltransferase (BHMT), cystathionine β-synthase (CBS), glutathione synthetase (GSS) and glutathione peroxidase 7 (GPx7). Broilers from 1 to 21 d and from 22 to 42 d of age were...

The present study aimed at evaluating the effect of the probiotic thepax and yogurt (as probiotic) on the growth response and intestinal microflora results of broiler chickens. Two hundred forty day-old Ross 308 broilers were equally distributed into 12 floor pens and reared for 42 day. The treatments consisted of yogurt (10, 5 and 2.5% during starter, grower and finisher periods in the drinkin...

1. The aim was to determine the prevalence of femoral head necrosis (FHN) as a cause of lameness in broilers, and to increase knowledge of its morphological features and aetiology. The studies were carried out in two farms (A and B) in Bulgaria, on 650,000 chickens from 38 flocks. 2. Lameness in broilers varied from 3-4% up to 15% for both farms. In affected flocks, mortality due to lameness ra...

Sound exposure effects have been investigated by broadcasting a group of broilers with sound of Quran verses (Group B) whereas the other group is the control broilers (Group C). The growth rate comparisons in terms of weight and raw meat texture measured by shear force have been investigated. Twenty-seven broilers were randomly selected from each group on Day 24 and weight measurement was carri...

s of papers 71 307 Broilers compared to Leghorns show an imbalance of the autonomic nervous system. W.J. Kuenzel*1 and R. Grossmann2, 1University of Maryland, College Park, MD/USA, 2Institute of Animal Science and Behavior, Celle,Germany. The following experiment tested the hypothesis that the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) of broilers dominates over the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) a...