Threonine is considered to be the third limiting amino acid for broilers. The aim of this study was to determine the threonine requirement of female broilers from 22 to 42 days of age. Seventy five, one-day of age female broiler chicks (Ross 308) were divided into five dietary treatment groups of similar mean weight, comprising 15 birds each, individually. They were fed a basal starter diet containing 23% CP, 3200 ME kcal/kg, 0.91% threonine and 1.10% lysine (Lys) during the first 3 weeks. At the end of the first feeding period, the broilers were randomly assigned to five dietary treatment groups receiving 0.70 (control diet), 0.75, 0.80, 0.85 and 0.90% of threonine. During the feeding period, growth performance parameters, body weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio were determined. The results obtained in the experiment showed that the group receiving 0.75% threonine attained the best performance. The results of our investigation also showed that the highest body weight gain occurred at 0.75% threonine; the tendency in better feed conversion ratio in the group receiving 0.80% threonine for female broilers. Our results suggest that the current NRC (1994), recommendation of 0.74% threonine for 21 to 42 days old broilers is adequate to support relative growth performance.

-The purpose of this study was to calculate costs of milk production, gross production value, gross margin, absolute profit, and relative profit of dairy cattle farms located in the provinces of east Mediterranean region of Turkey. Primary data were collected from 148 dairy cattle farms designated using the Neyman Stratified Sampling method through surveys. Dairy farms were classified into four groups according to the number of cows. The data belong to the 2012 production season. A single product budget analysis method was used for calculating production costs. According to the results, variable costs amounted to 65.91% of total production costs. Feed cost (86.52%) was the main component of variable costs. The cost of 1 kg of milk, on average, was calculated as USD 0.261. The cost of milk was USD 0.499 on group 1 farms, USD 0.399 on group 2 farms, USD 0.272 on group 3 farms, and USD 0.233 on group 4 farms. Among the farms under study, average gross margin value was negative only on group 1 farm, and positive in all other groups. Absolute profit value was positive only on group 4 farm, and negative in all other groups. The average relative profit of the farms was 0.9067. The expansion of dairy farms could be reached by reducing the feed cost as well as increasing the scale of farms.

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Tiger nut (Cyperus esculentus L.), or chufa, is a plant that is found in nature and is cultivated for its edible tubers. The purpose of this study was to determine the chemical composition, nutritive value, and in vitro digestibility of three tiger nut varieties using the in vitro gas production technique. These varieties were Sarışeker (yellow), Introduction 1, and Balyumru (brown). Rumen fluid was obtained from two cannulated Holstein animals. Time-dependent in vitro gas production was monitored at 3, 6, 9, 12, 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours of incubation. The varieties differed in dry matter (DM), crude ash (CA), ether extract (EE), neutral detergent fibre (NDF), and non-fibre carbohydrate (NFC) content (P <0.05). They also differed in the instantaneous volume of gas produced and in time-dependent gas production. Balyumru produced more gas at the onset of incubation than Introduction 1 and Sarışeker. However, over time, the gas produced by digestion of Introduction 1 exceeded the other two varieties. The amounts of gas produced at each time-point were intercorrelated. It is recommended that these results should lead to further evaluation in in vivo studies. Keywords: chemical composition, energy content, in vitro gas production

Abstract. The present study was conducted to estimate the (co)variance components for birth and weaning weight (BW and WW) in 8142 Awassi sheep between 2015 and 2017. Estimates were calculated with single-trait analysis by the average information restricted maximum likelihood (AI-REML) method, using a derivative-free algorithm by fitting six different univariate animal models. The negative of the log-likelihood function (LogL), Akaike information criterion (AIC), and Bayesian information criterion (BIC) tests were used for selecting the best fitted model. In addition, the goodness of fit between the two models was compared with the likelihood ratio test (LRT). Depending on the models, ha2 and hm2 ranged from 0.230 to 0.240 and 0.015 to 0.033 for BW, and 0.108 to 0.168 and 0.024 to 0.081 for WW, respectively. Model 3 for BW and Model 2 for WW were chosen as the best models by LogL comparison criteria. According to the LRT ratio test Model 2, Model 3, and Model 4 for BW and Model 2, Model 3, Model 4, Model 5, and Model 6 for WW were significant (p<0.05). Including maternal genetic or maternal permanent environmental effects in these models was found to be significant in terms of parameter estimates.