Aim:The experiment was carried out to evaluate different external and internal egg quality traits and to figure out their mode of inheritance from a set of hierarchically classified data.Materials and Methods:The data collected from 548 progenies (1 egg from each progeny) of 282 dams mated to 47 sires (1 sire mated to 6 dams) of a White Leghorn flock were used in the present study. Phenotypic means and their standard errors were calculated for all the quality traits. Heritabilities were estimated for these traits separately from “sire,” “dam” and “sire+dam” (full-sib) components of variance using Statistical Package for Social Sciences-17 program.Results:External quality traits such as; egg weight, length, width, shape index, surface area, shell weight, shell thickness, shell ratio, and internal quality traits such as; length, width, height, and weight of albumen and yolk, albumen index, albumen ratio, Haugh unit (H.U.), yolk diameter, yolk index, yolk ratio, and yolk albumen ratio were measured in 548 eggs of the experimental White Leghorn flock. The eggs were found to have optimum weight (57.78±0.20 g), shape index (73.53±0.18) and shell characteristics (6 g, 0.32 mm) as per its genetic potential. Higher values for albumen height (8.41±0.04) mm and H.U. (92.00±0.19) are attributable to the freshness of eggs and proper age of hens. Heritability estimates from “sire” component of variance were higher than “dam” and “sire+dam” components for the traits like egg weight, length, width, shape index, surface area, albumen width, albumen index, H.U., yolk width, yolk height, yolk weight, and yolk index whereas for rest of the traits the values estimated from “dam” component were higher. Estimates from “sire+dam” component were intermediate to the estimates derived from “sire” and “dam” components.Conclusion:The heritability estimates from different egg quality traits were moderate to high. Since most of the traits have high heritability values, these traits can be improved by mass selection.

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The present experiment was carried out to evaluate the effects of vitamin E and C supplementation on the antioxidant status of broiler breeder hens during summer. Two hundred seventy broiler breeder birds (coloured) were divided into nine groups with three replicates having 10 birds in each, and were supplemented two levels of antioxidant vitamins E (250 mg or 500 mg/kg) or C (200 mg or 400 mg/kg) alone or in combinations for a period of 8 weeks. All the vitamin supplemented groups showed significantly lowered malondialdehyde (MDA) level, higher activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) enzymes and higher Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) activities in erythrocytes than control. However, supplementation with combination of vitamins proved to be better than individual supplementation. It could be concluded that the combination of vitamins C and E at lower level (@ 200 mg/kg and 250 mg/kg, respectively) had higher erythrocytic antioxidant status in coloured broiler breeder hens as compared to individual vitamin supplementation during hot and humid stress.

Aim:The present study was conducted to investigate the important climatic variables affecting production and reproduction in a broiler breeder flock.Materials and Methods:The experiment was conducted for a period of 1 year on colored synthetic female line male and female poultry birds. 630 female progeny and 194 male progenies from 69 sires and 552 dams produced in four consecutive hatches at an interval of 10 days were used for the present study. Each of the seven, body weight and reproduction traits were regressed with nine environmental variables. Initially, the data were subjected to hatch effect and sire effect corrections through best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE) method and, then, multiple linear regressions of environmental variables on each trait were applied.Result:The overall regression was significant (p<0.01) in all traits except 20 week age body weight of females. The R2 value ranged from 0.12 to 0.90 for the traits. Regression coefficient values (b values) for maximum temperature and minimum temperature were significant (p<0.05) on 5th week age body weight of males. Similarly, evaporation and morning relative humidity (RH) was significant (p<0.05) for 5th week age body weight of females. Almost all b values were significant (p<0.05) for egg production up to 40 week age. The b values representing rainfall, morning RH, afternoon RH, sunshine hours, and rainy days were significant (p<0.05) on bodyweight at 20 week age. All environmental variables except maximum temperature and minimum temperature were significant (p<0.05) on body weight of females at 20 weeks of age. Age at sexual maturity was regressed significantly (p<0.05) with evaporation, afternoon RH whereas, egg shape index was regressed significantly (p<0.05) with a maximum temperature, evaporation and afternoon RH.Conclusion:The result indicated that various environmental variables play a significant role in production and reproduction of breeder broiler poultry. Controlling these variables in adverse weathers may increase production.

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The complex interactions between diet, intestinal mucosa and intestinal microbiota affect health status in livestock and poultry. Various approaches have been tried to exploit this relationship for achieving maximum health benefits and supplementation of prebiotics constitutes one of them. Now a days prebiotics have become news mainly as an alternative to probiotics, which are difficult to handle in foodstuffs, but whose benefits to gut health are well established. Commercially available prebiotics are mostly inulin, fructo-oligosaccharides, mannan-oligosaccharides, galacto-oligosaccharides, transgalacto-oligosaccharides, lactulose and oligochitosan, etc. Prebiotics selectively stimulate the growth of Bifidobacterium sp., Lactobacillus sp. and certain butyrate producing bacteria and suppress the growth of toxogenic Escherichia coli, Clostridium perfringens, Streptococcus sp., peptococci, bacilli, Staphylococcus sp., Salmonella enteritidis, Campylobacter sp., bacteriodaeceae, pseudomonad, yeast and mould. Dietary supplementation of prebiotics improve a plethora of gut health attributes like hindgut fermentation, gut mucosal integrity, lipid and glucose homeostasis, mineral bio-availability and immune response in livestock and poultry owing to which many feed and pharma industries have been established. Their inclusion in diet can also suppress boar taint, control faecal odour, prevent colon cancer and reduce infestation of several parasites such as Ascaris sp., Trichuris sp. and Oesophagostomum dentatum. Their satietogenic effect results from decline in ghrelin secretion which in turn regulates body weight gain in obese animals. Prebiotics may eventually replace the role of antibiotics as growth stimulants in fishery, poultry and animal husbandry sectors. Because of all these multitude of benefits, inclusion of prebiotics in basal diet should be taken into consideration while preparing formula feed for livestock and poultry.

In many parts of the world, the poultry industry has conquered a leading position among all the agricultural and allied sectors. Egg and meat industries have shown terrific improvement due to adoption of modernized management tools and preventive measures to lethal diseases. On the other hand, heat stress has emerged as one of the major constraint for future development of this industry particularly in the hot and humid parts of the world. Since birds are deprived of sweat glands thermoregulation becomes challenging in hot weather. Affected birds become poor producers and huge death in the flock can also be observed in some cases. Therefore, the sole objective of this review is to gather and deliver available scientific reports on heat stress in poultry including its prevention measures.

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