the purpose of this study was to determine the effects of feeding iron-deficient diet during pregnancy and lactation on maternal rats. a total number of 64 rats were divided into 4 groups (pregnant), (non pregnant), (lactating) and (non lactating) with 16 animals in each group. parameters used to evaluate the effects of dietary iron deficiency on the maternal animals were: iron contents of live...

Endocrine disruptors (EDs) are increasingly common chemicals in the environment. Bisphenol A (BPA), used to manufacture polycarbonate plastics, is an ED recognized for its estrogenic, anti-estrogenic, and anti-androgenic effects. Behavior is considered a vital characteristic for an animal's life cycle. This study evaluated the effect of exposure to low doses of BPA during pregnancy and/or lacta...

Fifty pure-bred Large White gilts were allocated to two feeding levels from 28 kg until service. They were fed a standard growing diet (13.4 MJ digestible energy (DE) per kg; 18.1% crude protein, CP; 0.96% lysine) either to appetite (AP) or at 80% of the AP level (R). Growth rate was reduced by about 20% in R gilts, whereas feed conversion ratio was unaffected by rearing treatment. First oestru...

Otariids, like other wild mammals, contend with a wide variety of energetic demands across seasons. However, due to the cryptic behaviors of this marine group, few studies have been able to examine longitudinal energetic costs or the potential impact of these costs on seasonal or annual prey requirements. Here we evaluated the changes in energy demand and intake of female California sea lions (...

the objective of this study was to estimates the genetic and environmental components for the lactation curve parameters, milk yield, age at first calving (afc), calving interval (ci) and somatic cell count (scc) in iranian holstein cows. the dataset consisted of 210625 test day records from 25883 cows with milk yield in the first parity recorded from july 2002 to september 2007 in a total of 9...

the genetic parameters for milk production and milk fat traits for first to third parities were estimated using single, multi trait and repeatability models. the genetic parameters for test day milk records were also estimated using random regression model. the test day records and 305 day milk records of 17055 cows from 10 herds collected between years 1996-2007 in khorasan razavi province wer...

ABs'r-(Ac'r. The T.]ltrastructure of tht endothe}ial cclls of the deep circumflex iliac and caudal supcrficial cpigastric arteries suppiying thc abdomino-inguinal rnammary g]and of female Wistar ra{s was studied throughout the reproductive cycle with an electron micros ¢ ope and image ana]yzerand compared with that of mammary gland capillaries. The subendetheiial space of the arteries was broad...

Histamine-containing enterochromaffin-like (ECL) cells are numerous in the gastric mucosa. They operate under the control of gastrin. ECL-cell tumors (gastric carcinoids) may arise as a consequence of sustained hypergastrinemia. For reasons unknown, such tumors have a female preponderance both in laboratory animals and humans. The present study consisted of four experiments exploring the possib...

During the female reproductive cycle, hypothalamic oxytocin (OT) neurons undergo sharp changes in excitability. In lactating mammals, bursts of electrical activity of OT neurons result in the release of large amounts of OT in the bloodstream, which causes milk ejection. One hypothesis is that OT neurons regulate their own firing activity and that of nearby OT neurons by somatodendritic release ...

Bovine lactoferrin (LF) has been shown to prevent adhesion to and invasion of mammalian cell lines by pathogenic bacteria, with evidence for direct bacterial binding by the milk glycoprotein. However, the glycosylation pattern of LF changes over the lactation cycle. In this study, we aim to investigate the effect that this variation has on the milk glycoprotein's ability to interact with pathog...