The process of egg production has to be regarded as severe metabolic stress to the hen. Elevated corticosterone concentrations have been described to precede oviposition for one to two hours, but may be masked by the diurnal changes in levels of glucocorticosteroids (corticosterone, cortisol). Increased corticoid levels were discussed either to be involved in the local induction of the process ...

Only healthy laying hens are capable of producing an average of 280 eggs in 1 year of exploitation. Production of consume eggs takes place in intensive housing systems where the laying hens are still mainly kept in cages under controlled conditions. Technical infrastructure and hygiene quality do not guarantee a production atmosphere completely free from pollutants, including potential patholog...

The cell cycle system is controlled in a timely manner by three groups of cyclins, cyclin dependent kinases and cyclin dependent kinase inhibitors. Abnormal alterations of cell cycle regulatory mechanisms are a common feature of many diseases including numerous tumor types such as ovarian cancer. Although a variety of cell cycle regulatory genes are well known in mammalian species including hum...

Induced molting improves egg producing functions in hens. We investigated the mechanism of oviducal regression during induced molting. Involvement of apoptosis and autolysis in the oviducal regression process was analyzed by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (Tdt)-mediated biotinylated deoxyuridine triphosphates (dUTP) nick end-labeling (TUNEL) and an enzyme histochemistry for acid phosphat...

This study aimed to examine the nutrient utilization of rump round meat and lotus root using young (32 wk) and aged hens (108 wk) as an animal model. Rump round meat and lotus root were prepared with or without enzymatic treatment. For each age group of laying hens, a total of 24 Hy-Line Brown laying hens were randomly allotted to one of two dietary treatments with six replicates. For rump roun...

Heat stress had a negative effect on laying hens' performance, thus this research was to study the influences of betaine (Bet, 1000 mg/kg betaine), vitamin C (VC, 200 mg/kg ascorbic acid), and vitamin E (VE, 150 mg/kg α-Tocopherol acetate) and their possible combinations on egg production, digestibility of nutrients, plasma hormones and reproductive organs of dual-purpose hens exposed to chroni...

Antibiotic resistant bacteria can be easily isolated from the faeces of cattle, pigs or poultry. However, whether the production of different farm animals is associated with a higher or lower prevalence of antibiotic resistance is not clear. In this study we therefore used real time PCR for the quantification of antibiotic gene prevalence in the DNA purified from the faeces of farm animals. Fir...

The objective of the present study is to research the effect of dietary vitamin E (Vit E) on the antioxidative status and lipid peroxidation in laying hens as well as in egg yolks under experimentally induced oxidative stress conditions via Dexamethasone (DEX) administrations. A total of 60 Egyptian local strain (Gimmizah) laying hens at 36 weeks of age were housed in individual cages in an ope...

Feather pecking and high mortality levels are significant welfare problems in non-cage housing systems for laying hens. The aim of this study was to identify husbandry-related risk factors for feather damage, mortality, and egg laying performance in laying hens housed in the multi-tier non-cage housing systems known as aviaries. Factors tested included type of system flooring, degree of red mit...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the possibility of improving egg lipids and fatty acids composition of laying hens through inclusion of olive cake plus barley malt rootlets in the diets. Seventy, 54-week-old, Lohman laying hens were fed for a 12 weeks laying period on 3 iso-caloric and iso-nitrogenous diets contained 0 (control), 28.5 g olive cake (OC) + 25.5 g barley malt rootl...