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Poultry farming is the practice of raising poultry, chicken, turkeys, ducks etc. as an important subcategory of animal husbandry for the production of eggs, meat, feather, etc. Backyard poultry keeping is practiced by majority of the poor and marginalized rural households all over India. These households rely on low cost backyard poultry rearing to supplement and enhance their livelihoods.Kadaknath is an important Indian poultry breed, also known as Kalamashi in Hindi, is

Authors' Contribution RHK and SA collected, analyzed data and wrote manuscript. ZL and LT supervised the study and assisted in write-up and review before submission.

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Extreme heat along with metabolic stress associated with the postpartum period negatively affects the endocrine status of animals. Betaine is a feed additive that promotes animal growth. Since betaine contains three methyl groups, it acts as a methyl donor in animal metabolism. Eighteen postpartum Murrah buffaloes were randomly divided into T1 Group (Control), T2 and T3 Group was supplemented with betaine 50 g/animal/day and 100 g/animal/day respectively from 5th day postpartum and was continued up to 4 months postpartum. On day 50 postpartum the mean value of plasma cortisol of T1 Group was maximum followed by T2 Group and T3 Group had minimum plasma cortisol mean value which differed (P<0.05) significantly between groups. The mean concentration of plasma T3 total, T4 total, progesterone and estrogen showed (P>0.05) non-significant difference between all the groups. However, betaine fed T2 and T3 Group had higher plasma T3, T4, progesterone and estrogen as compared to control, it might be due to the effect of betaine, which reduces metabolic stress and activate hypothalmo-pituitary and gonadal axis after parturition and lactation period during heat stress.

In today's world the interest of farmers is also increasing towards the poultry farming as well as in keeping ducks, geese, quail, and other species of poultry and waterfowl for raising their socioeconomic status. The physiologic especially the hematological and biochemical parameters are utmost important to determined their health status, body condition, adaptation to habitat and useful diagnostic tools in veterinary practice and ecological research. The aim of the study was to obtain hematological and biochemical parameters of these birds. Hematological and blood chemical values were determined for Indian captive Ducks. These blood samples were evaluated to establish normal blood values in ducks. Blood samples of twelve were collected from the brachial vein and analyzed within two hrs. of collection. Hematological parameters such as Hemoglobin, packed cell volume, erythrocyte and total leukocyte count and biochemical parameters like blood glucose, total protein, alkaline phosphatase, glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase and SGPT were determined. The hematological and biochemical values should prove useful in providing background information and documenting baseline data for intra and interspecies comparisons with normal and diseased birds. The birds sampled in this work were clinically healthy and the means and standard deviations shown give an indication of the normal range.

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