A 3 × 3 factorial experiment with three levels of fennel extract (FE) (0, 50, and 100 mg/kg of diet) and three levels of added vitamin D3 (Vit D3) (0, 3500 and 4200 IU/kg of diet), was carried out to evaluate reproductive performanceand immune response of post molted broiler breeders(76-84 weeks).Broiler breeders were weighed at 10 week after molting (74 weeks) then randomly distributed into 36...

Blue-green and brown-spotted eggshells in birds have been proposed as sexual signals of female physiological condition and egg quality, reflecting maternal investment in the egg. Testing this hypothesis requires linking eggshell coloration to egg content, which is lacking for brown protoporphyrin-based pigmentation. As protoporphyrins can induce oxidative stress, and a large amount in eggshells...

Concerns regarding the welfare of laying hens raised in battery cages have led to the development of enriched cages that allow hens to perform natural behaviors including nesting, roosting, and scratching. This study was conducted to compare indices of production and welfare in birds housed in 2 different caging systems. Shaver White hens were housed from 21 to 61 wk in either conventional batt...

Comparative performance of Kuzi ducks and its two crossbreds with Khaki Campbell, viz. × Campbell (DK) (KD) were carried out in respect to various production, egg weight, age at different production level quality traits. The laying period body weight showed significant difference between the three genetic groups, irrespective measurement duck recorded significantly higher than crosses. attained...

In an experiment with 288 laying hens from a commercial strain (Hy-line W36), the effect of partial and total replacement of soybean meal, corn grain, wheat grain and wheat bran with dried tomato pulp (DTP) on performance and egg quality was determined. In the 12 week experiment, hens (27 to 38 weeks of age) were allocated to four dietary treatments being: DTP0, DTP50, DTP100 and DTP150 of 72 b...

Hosts of brood-parasitic birds must distinguish their own eggs from parasitic mimics, or pay the cost of mistakenly raising a foreign chick. Egg discrimination is easier when different host females of the same species each lay visually distinctive eggs (egg 'signatures'), which helps to foil mimicry by parasites. Here, we ask whether brood parasitism is associated with lower levels of correlati...

Identification of genes determining the expression of economically important traits of plants and animals is a main research focus in agricultural genomics. Most of these traits are characterized by a wide variability of the expression of genes at certain loci called quantitative trait loci (QTL). Characterization of the chromosomal regions carrying QTL can be applied in marker-assisted Selecti...