A study was undertaken to test the effect of 2 commercially available probiotics on the production efficiency of broiler chickens hatched from the same breeder flock at 3 different ages (28, 43, and 57 wk). At each of the 3 breeder flock ages, 1,600 broiler chickens were hatched and randomly allocated to 1 of 4 treatments: 1) no probiotics (control), 2) probiotic 1 administered in the drinking ...

In size-structured groups, conflict over rank, resources or access to breeding opportunities is expected to be greatest among individuals that are similar in size. We tested this general prediction using the cooperatively breeding African cichlid, Neolamprologus pulcher. We predicted that, when size differences between group members were small, we would observe some or all of: increased aggress...

Breeder Genetic Algorithms represent a class of random optimisation techniques gleaned from the science of population genetics, which have proved their ability to solve hard optimisation problems with continuous parameters. In this paper we test a parallel version of this technique against a sequential Breeder Genetic Algorithm on a typical inverse design problem in Aerodynamics, the problem of...

In social groups, subordinates may gain dominant breeding status either by inheriting the top position in their current group or by dispersing to join a new group. The pathway to breeder status is likely to vary between males and females as a result of sex differences in the costs of dispersal and inbreeding. We report results from a field study conducted to explore sex differences in the rates...

Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis (Salmonella Enteritidis) has been associated with morbidity and mortality in broiler chickens worldwide. The present study described purulent arthritis of broilers infected with Salmonella Enteritidis and investigated antibiograms and genetic characteristics of Salmonella Enteritidis isolates from epidemiologically related properties such as a hatchery an...

This trial examined the effect of 2 turkey breeder hen ages (33 or 55 wk of age) on performance, intestinal histology, and inflammatory immune response of female turkey poults grown to market weight. Using a randomized design, female poults were separated by breeder flock age (n = 8 floor pens/breeder flock age; n = 26 poults/pen; 0.195 m(2)/bird), fed identical commercial diets (9 phases), and...

To investigate the effect of canthaxanthin supplied via a maternal route on the production of both breeder hens and chickens, 270 Chinese Three-Yellow breeder hens were randomly divided into 2 groups consisting of 135 birds each (5 replicates of 27) for study. The breeder hens were fed either a basal diet or the basal diet supplemented with 6 mg of canthaxanthin/kg for 24 wk. At the end of the ...

India has long pursued a fast breeder program, motivated in part by the availability of only poor quality uranium resources within the country. But progress so far has been disappointing, with only one test reactor having been constructed and having a chequered operating history. The larger Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor that is being constructed has a design that compromises safety and will pr...

In this paper, the discrete element method (DEM) approach has been applied to study mechanical behaviors of ceramic breeder ebble beds. Directly simulating the contact state of each individual particle by the physically based interaction laws, the DEM umerical program is capable of predicting the mechanical behaviors of non-standard packing structures. The program can also rovide the data to tr...

Sera samples from 89 dairy cows with repeat breeder and 94 healthy pregnant dairy cows (controls) from Elazig province of eastern Turkey were tested for presence of Neospora caninum antibodies by use of a competitive enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (cELISA). Fifteen out of 183 cows tested (8.19%) were found to be seropositive to N. caninum antibody. Overall, seroprevalence of N. caninum was s...