Iraqi native chickens have tasty meat and eggs; however, they are characterized by low production efficiency. In fact, phenotypic traits, such as growth rate, are influenced by genes and environmental factors. During health and disease, a variety of cellular processes such as proliferation, differentiation, motility, adhesion, migration, apoptosis, and immune response regulate the TGF-β genes. The enhancement in body weight can be reached through mass selection, whereas feed conversion is relatively more difficult to improve. This means, selecting for body weight has been submitted as an effective way of indirectly improving feed conversion ratio. However, the present study attempts to identify associations between productive traits and polymorphism of TGF-β2 gene in local chicken. Seventy-five male birds were used in this study. The restriction enzyme RsaI has been used to detect the target region (284 bp) in the TGF-β2 gene. A SNP was identified at the 62 position in the exon 1 region of TGF-β2 by using PCR-RFLP and DNA sequencing technique. The genotypic frequencies were 46.7, 40 and 13.3% for CC and TC and TT genotypes, respectively. While the allele frequency of C and T were 0.67 and 0.33%, respectively. Generally, during the last period of rearing the best significant (p>0.05) improve in the body weight, weight gain and FCR were recorded in the TT genotype of the TGF-β2 gene. In conclusion, a functional sequence in the genome could be attributed to the mutation. Therefore, genotype of the TGF-β2 gene could be exploited to select the best individual as a parent to the next generations for improving of growth rate in local chickens.
Prevention of Newcastle disease has received a lot of interest across the world. The high productivity performance of the commercial chickens’ breeds has negative effects on the immune system and animal welfare. As a result, the current study aimed to investigate the benefits of adding Artemisia powder at levels of 0.5% and 1% to broilers’ feed as a growth and health promoter. A total of 120 commercial broiler chickens were grown on the floor in a chicken house and separated into three groups, including one control and two treatment groups. Each group contained 40 chickens subdivided into two replicates. The three groups, namely G1 (chickens without Artemisia powder, as a control group), G2, and G3 in which chickens were fed with basal diet plus 0.5% and 1% Artemisia powder, respectively, were differentiated based on their diet throughout 35 days of the experiment. The measured parameters included the immune response to Newcastle disease vaccine, blood biochemical parameters, and growth performance as well as relative weight for the spleen and bursa of Fabricius. A diet containing 1% Artemisia powder significantly improved antibody titer against Newcastle disease, body weight, and weight gain. Thus, the addition of 1% of Artemisia powder to the broiler’s diet can improve immune response against Newcastle disease and growth performance.
A total of 200 male chicks (Ross 308) were divided randomly at day-old into equal 5 treatments groups (40 birds each treatment), as following: T1/ birds fed basal diet without supplement with omega-3 fatty acids (as control group) while T2, T3, T4 and T5/ birds fed basal diet supplement daily with 0.25 and 0.5% respectively from flaxseed oil and fish oil during experiment period (35 days). Results revealed significant improvement of mean live body weights at age 35 days for T3, T5 and T2 while T4 not appeared significant difference compared with T1(control group). The present study was carried out to determinate body weights of male broilers when fed on rations contains different sources and levels of omega-3 fatty acids.
In recent years, the linkages between diet and health have received increasing public attention, especially in popular media. Although dairy products, especially fluid milk, have historically enjoyed a widespread perception of being healthy food products. Considerable numbers of studies in Iraq were emphasized on milk quantity rather than quality. Therefore, 80 milk samples (30 ml) under aseptic condition (cleaning, disinfected of udder and deposit first milk drops) were randomly collected from local breed ewes that birth male and female lambs at four times (1, 2, 3 and 4 weeks respectively) during the lactation period. Fat, protein, solids non fat (SNF), milk density, lactose and freezing point were measured by using Eko milk (total ultrasonic milk analyzer, USA). The results indicate that the sex of lamb had no effect on milk contents for ewes.
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