Contamination of poultry feeds by aflatoxin is a problem faced by poultry producers at one time or another. Of the several strategies used to reduce the economic effect of aflatoxincontaminated feeds, the inclusion of selective enterosorbents may be the most practical and cost effective. This study evaluated the effectiveness of montmorillonite clay (MC) supplied as NovaSil PLUS on the performa...

Coccidiosis is endemic in the commercial broiler industry capable of inflicting devastating economic losses to poultry operations. Vaccines are relatively effective in controlling the disease; their efficacy could potentially be improved with concurrent use of probiotics as evaluated in this study using an Eimeria challenge. Day of hatch 400 Cobb-500 male broilers were assigned to one of four t...

Efficacy of Feeding Treatments and Litter Formulations against Shedding of Salmonella in Broilers. (May 2009) Eryn Linnae Larrison, B.S., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Michael Davis Research has shown that Salmonella can be prevalent in poultry litter, which can be a source of contamination for newly arrived chicks at the poultry house. Since this organism is a pathogen ...

A semi-field study was carried out to evaluate the effect of two medicinal herbs, individually and in combination, on growth performance, carcass traits, nutrient digestibility and immune response of broiler chickens.  A total of 384 one-day-old straight-run Arbor Acres broiler chickens were allocated into 24 floor pens prepared in a commercial broiler house. Pen-groups were fed one of the foll...

Enclosed and insulated commercial poultry buildings provide ideal habitat for supporting unusually large populations of the house mouse (Mus musculus L.). Mice cause damage to various structural and operational components of poultry facilities; thus, they are of economic significance as well as general nuisances. Effective mouse control programs in poultry operations are often difficult, compli...

Energy is an important component of poultry feed and is derived principally from cereal grains. Unfortunately, all of the chemical energy is not available to the bird, and biological assays must be used to determine the digestible energy value of a cereal grain. The bioassay described uses four pens of six male broiler chicks, complete diets containing 80% of a test cereal grain (with or withou...

The passive surveillance of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in domestic poultry is based essentially on the reporting of suspicious clinical cases by the poultry keepers to the veterinary services. As little was known about HPAI disease awareness among Swiss poultry keepers, a cross-sectional study was conducted among poultry keepers in Switzerland in 2007. For data triangulation and c...

Campylobacter jejuni, a widespread food-borne pathogen is responsible for enteritis in the populations of both industrialised and developing nations and is acquired by consumption of contaminated water, milk and food products. Contaminated poultry meat is regarded as an important source of campylobacteriosis, with both commercial broiler and turkey growing flocks infected at two to three weeks ...

A study was conducted to compare the growth performance as well as blood and carcass variables of two broiler strains reared in a conventional broiler house and a modified greenhouse equipped with cooling pads and tunnel ventilation system. Eight hundred day-old chickens of two commercial strains (Ross  308 and Lohmann) were selected and placed in  8 floor pens (4 pens of  50 broilers for each ...