A survey to document the behaviour characteristics and mortality pattern of indigenous chicken of Kerala and a field egg recording study to record egg production characteristics of these birds were conducted. Flight distance and height was 13.29 and 3.97 m, respectively. The territory radius of cocks was 121.15 m. The chick survivability at 4 weeks of age was 64.98 percent. The day-old and 8 th week body weights were 28.83 and 347.24 g, respectively. The 20 th and 40 th week body weight of males were 1,428.42 and 1,936.67 g and that of females were 1,114.04 and 1,445.63 g, respectively. The mortality up to 72 weeks was 69.38 percent and major cause of mortality during chick, grower and layer stage were mongoose (44.63 percent), wolf (24.29 percent) and diseases (52.18 percent) respectively. The fertility was 71.22 percent and hatchability on total and fertile egg set were 62.26 and 87.42 percent, respectively. There were 2.13 clutches in a laying cycle with inter-clutch intervals of 1.11 days. The average clutch size and number of eggs per cycle were 7.27 and 14.32, respectively. The egg number up to 72 weeks on hen-day and hen-housed basis was 116.81 and 85.84, respectively and the eggs were laid in 7.7 cycles. The age at first egg and average age at sexual maturity were 155 and 199.26 days, respectively. The egg weight at 28, 40 and 72 weeks of age was 37.80, 40.74 and 43.31 g, respectively, and egg mass per bird was 4,659.04 g. The broodiness and incubation pause were 26.03 and 121.75 days, respectively.

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Background: Broodiness is a sex linked behavioural trait observed in most of the domestic fowls and it’s also known as incubation behaviour. Prolactin (PRL) is the principal gene which plays a crucial role to the onset and maintenance of broodiness in birds. The present study was aimed at identification of 24bp (insertion-deletion) indel polymorphism at the promoter region of prolactin gene and its association with broodiness in Telllicherry native chicken population. Methods: A total number of 200 birds of Tellicherry native chicken were randomly selected from All India Co-ordinated Research Project (AICRP) on poultry improvement, Mannuthy, Thrissur, Kerala. Blood samples were collected from the wing vein under aseptic condition and isolation of Genomic DNA was done. Isolated DNA samples were subjected to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using specific set of forward and reverse primer to detect a 24bp indel polymorphism in the prolactin gene. PCR amplicons were subjected to further molecular analysis. Result: According to the polymorphic patterns birds were categorized to three different genotypes viz., II (insertion-insertion), ID (insertion-deletion) and DD (deletion-deletion). The genotype and allele frequency was calculated and the frequency of I allele (0.6975) was found to be higher than D allele (0.3025). Results of this study suggest that the incubation behaviour could be eliminated in Tellicherry native chicken population by increasing the frequency of I allele upon selective breeding which may enhance the egg production. Therefore, this 24bp indel polymorphism could be used as a molecular marker in poultry breeding.

Background: Fat and oil are commonly used in poultry diets to increase energy density and also to increase the palatability of feed, feed efficiency and for deposition of fat in broilers. Thus a study was proposed to find the effects of dietary replacement of saturated fatty acid rich palm oil (PO) by omega-3 rich rapeseed oil (RO) on growth performance and economics in broilers. Method: The growth performance feeding trial was conducted in 160 day-old broilers (vencobb 400) with four treatment groups (G1, G2, G3 and G4) with four replicates of ten chicks each. The basal diet (R1) was prepared with palm oil included at the rate of 1.5, 3, and 4.5 per cent in pre-starter, starter and finisher ration, respectively and fed to G1. The other treatment groups G2, G3 and G4 received R2, R3 and R4 experimental rations respectively. The experimental rations R2, R3 and R4 were prepared with rapeseed oil replacing 25, 50 and 100 per cent of palm oil which was included in R1. Result: The broiler ration prepared with rapeseed oil at 50 and 100 per cent level (G3 and G4) replacing palm oil showed increased body weight gain (P less than 0.01) and better feed conversion ratio (P less than 0.05) than G1 group. There was no significant difference in the feed intake among the different treatment groups. Profit per kg live weight in G3 (Rs.12.06) and G4 (Rs.11.14) was more than G1 (Rs.8.21) and G2 (Rs.6.57). The supplementation of omega-3 rich rapeseed oil had significantly improved the performance of broilers.

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A study was conducted to compare the effect of storage of water in copper, earthenware and stainless steel vessels on coliform count and aerobic plate count. Water samples contaminated with animal excreta was collected from farms and aerobic plate count and coliform count was estimated. The samples were then stored in copper, earthenware and stainless steel vessels for ten days at room temperature and the counts were taken on third, sixth and tenth days. Initial mean aerobic plate count of sample was 9.18±0.38 log 10 cfu/ml, which came down to 4.99±0.12 log 10 cfu/ml, 5.87±0.47 log 10 cfu/ml and 5.21±0.42 log 10 cfu/ml respectively, in copper, earthenware and stainless steel vessels on third day of storage. By tenth day of storage of water, copper vessel could eliminate 83 per cent of aerobic bacteria, earthenware vessel could eliminate 77 per cent of aerobic bacteria and stainless steel vessel could eliminate only 70 per cent of aerobic bacteria. Coliforms were completely eliminated from copper vessel by third day of storage. Whereas, earthenware vessel retained 66 percent of initial coliforms on third day of storage, and it took seven to ten days for complete removal of coliforms from earthenware vessel. Stainless steel vessel retained 23.5 per cent of initial coliforms on tenth day of storage. It could be concluded that use of copper vessels for storing drinking water in households is an effective water purification method. Highlights• Among copper, earthenware and stainless steel vessels, copper vessel is the best for storing water followed by earthenware and stainless steel vessels

Waste management with limited resource input under minimum space is the need of the hour. Black Soldier Fly (BSF)/Hermetia illucens is a fly prevailing and flourishing in our tropical climatic condition and is a miracle insect since it can solve a multitude of global problems like waste management, animal feed production and energy production. This fly is highly reputed in converting low quality biomasses in to high protein, high energy larvae meal. In this study we are assessing the quantity of BSF larvae produced from food waste and the waste reduction efficiency of the BSF larvae. Four kilograms of food waste was kept in a modified bin with 6 replicates and the development of the larvae was through natural breeding. The study revealed that from the above said quantity, an average of 0.567kg of BSF larvae can be produced per bin and average waste reduction efficiency was 73.81%.