Photoperiod is an important factor in stimulating broiler performance in commercial poultry practice. However, the mechanism by which photoperiod affects the performance of broiler chickens has not been adequately explored. The current study evaluated the effects of three different photoperiod regimes (short day (LD) = 8 h light, control (CTR) = 12.5 h light, and long day (SD) = 16 h light) on ...

In Malawi, just like any other country, nutrition remains one of the challenges that indigenous chickens experience under smallholder management system. The birds are dependent on scavenging feed resources which is inadequate and chickens sometimes are supplemented with maize bran and left over’s depending on the availability. This results in low productivity in indigenous chickens. Indigenous ...

In order to design a new Salmonella enterica vaccine, one needs to understand how naive and immune chickens interact differently when exposed to S. enterica. In this study we therefore determined the immune response of vaccinated and non-vaccinated chickens after intravenous infection with Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis (S. Enteritidis). Using flow cytometry we showed that 4 days post ...

The Toxoplasmatinae parasites Toxoplasma gondii, Neospora caninum and Hammondia spp. have carnivores as definitive hosts that shed the parasite oocysts in their feces. Birds that feed directly from the soil, such as chickens, are exposed to infection and may serve as indicators of the presence of the parasite in the environment and as a source of infection for other animals. The aims of this st...

Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) is a pituitary glycoprotein hormone that is encoded by separate alphaand betasubunit genes. It plays a key role in stimulating and regulating ovarian follicular development and egg production in chicken. FSH signal transduction is mediated by the FSH receptor (FSHR) that exclusively interacts with the beta-subunit of FSH, but characterization of prokaryotic ex...

Little is known about broiler chicken ranging behaviour. Previous studies have monitored ranging behaviour at flock level but whether individual ranging behaviour varies within a flock is unknown. Using Radio Frequency Identification technology, we tracked 1200 individual ROSS 308 broiler chickens across four mixed sex flocks in two seasons on one commercial farm. Ranging behaviour was tracked ...

Two trials utilizing two corn diets and four wheat diets were conducted. In Trial 2, all chicks were crop-infused at 9 d of age with Eimeria acervulina. In both trials, a broth culture of Clostridium perfringens was mixed with the diets for 3 consecutive d. Necrotic enteritis lesion scores were lowest in chickens consuming the corn diet with no C. perfringens and highest in chickens fed the whe...

Free-ranging local chicken flocks are important for the livelihood of resource-poor rural farmers in Tanzania, as they provide a critical source of animal protein and a ready source of income through the sale of chickens and eggs. An occurrence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in the village setting of Tanzania would result in a disastrous loss of livelihood. This paper attempts to o...

Identifying the metabolic differences in the livers of modern broilers and local chicken breeds is important for understanding their biological characteristics, and many proteomic changes in their livers are not well characterized. We therefore analyzed the hepatic protein profiles of a commercial breed, Arbor Acres (AA) broilers, and a local dual purpose breed, Big Bone chickens, using two-dim...

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) signaling pathways are the first lines in defense against Salmonella enteritidis (S. enteritidis) infection but the molecular mechanism underlying susceptibility to S. enteritidis infection in chicken remains unclear. SPF chickens injected with S. enteritidis were partitioned into two groups, one consisted of those from Salmonella-susceptible chickens (died within 5 d...