Introduction: Feathers are important body structures that act as surface insulators to reduce maintenance energy requirements and also to protect skin against abrasions and infection. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of methionine injection into the yolk sac on development of feather follicle in chicken embryo. Methods: 50 fertilized eggs (weighting 50±0.4 gr) of Ross×...

sarcheshmeh copper mine, with the final reserves of 828 million tons of sulfur ore and average grade of 0.74%, is known to be the largest open pit of iran and most probably the second largest copper mine in the world. this mine is located in the seismotectonic zone of central-iran, and 23 km away from the 150 km long rafsanjan active fault.in this study the vulnerability of the west wall of the...

Feathers are complex, branched keratin structures that exhibit a diversity of pigmentation patterns. Feather pigments are transferred into developing feather keratinocytes from pigment cells that migrate into the tubular feather germ from the dermis. Within-feather pigment patterns are determined by differential pigmentation of keratinocytes within independent barb ridges during feather develop...

various cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have suggested that synthetic bedding is associated with asthma, allergic rhinitis and eczema while feather bedding seems to be protective. synthetic bedding items have higher house dust mite allergen levels than feather bedding items. this is possibly the mechanism involved although fungal and bacterial proinflammatory compounds and volatile org...

Bilcik, B. and L. J. Keeling (1999). "Changes in feather condition in relation to feather pecking and aggressive behaviour in laying hens." British Poultry Science 40(4): 444-451. 1. The aim of this experiment was to describe and examine the relationship between pecks received by individual birds and the feather and skin damage of those birds at different ages. The effect of group size was also...

To elucidate the genes involved in the formation of white and black plumage in ducks, RNA from white and black feather bulbs of an F(2) population were analyzed using RNA-Seq. A total of 2,642 expressed sequence tags showed significant differential expression between white and black feather bulbs. Among these tags, 186 matched 133 annotated genes that grouped into 94 pathways. A number of genes...

The measurement of corticosterone (CORT) levels in feathers has recently become an appealing tool for the conservation toolbox, potentially providing a non-invasive, integrated measure of stress activity throughout the time of feather growth. However, because the mechanism of CORT deposition, storage and stability in feathers is not fully understood, it is unclear how reliable this measure may ...

The pecking behavior [severe feather, gentle feather, and aggressive pecks (AP)] of individual White Shaver non-cage laying hens (n = 300) was examined at 21, 24, 27, 32, and 37 weeks. Hens were housed in 30 groups of 10 hens each and on 3 cm litter with access to a feeder, perch, and two nest boxes. The number of severe feather pecks given (SFPG) and received (SFPR) was used to categorize hens...