A B S T R A C T Neonatal calf diarrhea remains one of the most important problems faced by livestock, causing great economic losses. This study investigated the prevalence of Salmonella and Escherichia coli, especially enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC), in diarrheic calves. Fecal samples were collected from 127 diarrheic calves up to 3 months of age at 12 farms from different governorates in Egypt. 119 bacterial isolates (93.7%) were recovered and the prevalences of Salmonella and E. coli in diarrheic calves were 18.1% and 75.6%, respectively. Serotyping of Salmonella isolates revealed that S. Enteritidis and S. Typhimurium were the most prevalent serotypes, representing 60.9% and 30.4%, respectively, while S. Dublin was 8.7%. Serogrouping of E. coli isolates showed that 10 O-serogroups were obtained where O26 and O103 were the most prevalent (17.7% of each). Salmonella serotypes showed positive results with PCR test using oligonucleotide primer amplifying 521 bp fragment of invA gene of Salmonella while 70% of E. coli serogroups possessed ETEC virulent gene (K99). The in-vitro antibiotic sensitivity test indicated that Salmonella serotypes showed high sensitivity against enrofloxacin, spectinomycin and neomycin while E. coli isolates showed high sensitivities against marbofloxacin, spectinomycin and neomycin only. © 2016 Beni-Suef University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/).

| Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) is the causative agent of an acute and highly contagious disease affecting the respiratory, renal and/or reproductive systems of chicken called infectious bronchitis disease. Controlling of this disease needs continuous identification of the circulating strains and genotypes. In the present study, six IBV samples were isolated from different poultry farms located in northern Egypt and propagated in the allantoic cavity of specific pathogen-free embryonated chicken eggs causing curling and dwarfing of embryos at different serial egg passages. The harvested allantoic fluids were titrated by chicken embryo kidney cell cultures selecting suitable viral concentrations for investigating the ciliostasis effect of IBV on tracheal organ cell cultures. In addition, the nucleotide and protein sequences of the IBV spike glycoprotein (S) were used for molecular relationship analysing and construction of phylogenetic trees. All examined viruses induced complete ciliostasis at the fifth day post inoculation. Isolates shared total sequence identities of 99-100% on nucleotide and amino acid levels. The Egyptian strain (Eg/CLEVB-1/IBV/012) showed 99% and the Israeli strain (IS/1494/06 IBV) showed 98% with the collected isolates and recognized as the local strains with the highest total sequence identities and phylogenetic relatedness of all strains available from the Gene Bank. The Italy02 strain of IBV is the nearest relative to the collected isolates with total sequence identities of 79 and 77% at nucleotide and amino acid levels, respectively. The new variant strains currently isolated from the northern of Northern Egypt should be evaluated periodically for developing suitable autogenously based virus vaccines.

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he present study was conducted to investigate the effect of feeding commercial probiotic preparation (Proact) supplementation on growth performance, carcass traits, blood parameters, intestinal morphological parameters and economical efficiency. A total of 240, one-day old Molar ducklings were individually weighed, wingbanded and randomly assigned to eight equal groups each of 3 replicates (30 birds each). All birds were fed a starter diet until 21-day of age and finisher diet from 22 day until marketing (70 d). Ducklings of group 1 (control) were fed the starter and finisher diets without Proact supplementation. Ducklings of groups 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 were fed the control diets plus graded levels of Proact (0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.00, 1.25, 1.50 and 1.75g/ kg diet, respectively). Results revealed that ducklings of group 4 (0.75) showed significantly (P≤ 0.05) higher body weight, body weight gain, feed intake and performance index. Moreover, feed conversion ratio, European efficiency index and economic efficiency were significantly improved. Carcass and giblets weights and percentage were significantly (P≤ 0.05) increased with the supplementation. Probiotics supplementation (0.75g/ kg diet) significantly increased serum glucose and liver enzymes (AST and ALT), and significantly (P≤ 0.05) decreased createnine, cholesterol, triglyceride and total lipids. However; total protein and albumen were not affected. Moreover, villi height, villi width and villi height: villi width ratio were significantly improved by the addition of probiotics up to 0.75g/ kg diet. Therefore, it may be concluded that supplementation of 0.75g probiotics/ kg diet could be used in diets of Molar ducklings from 0-10 weeks of age to improve growth performance, feed efficiency, and carcass traits.

The present experiment was conducted in order to investigate the effect of Moringa Oleifera Leaves powder on the performance, some blood serum components, some histomorphological measurements and economic efficiency of broiler chickens. A total of 225 Cobb unsexed one-day old broiler chicks, were distributed at random into 5 treatments each in 3 replicates, 15 chicks each. Moringa Oleifera leaves powder (MOL) was added at the levels of 0, 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75% to low crud protein diet (LCP, 20 and 17%, negative control) compared to the normal crud protein (23 and 20%, positive control), respectively at the starter (1-21 d) and at the finisher (22-35d) period. Results indicated that, chicks fed the low crude protein diet supplemented with Moringa Oliefera leaves powder (MOL) had significantly (P ≤ 0.05) higher body weight, body weight gain, daily feed intake and performance index. Feed conversion ratio, European efficiency index and relative economic efficiency were also improved with the supplementation. Chicks fed low crude protein diet supplemented with 0.25 or 0.50% MOL have the highest dressing weight (1753 and 1738g) with no significant differences between them compared and increased serum total protein and glucose levels, while significantly decreased serum total cholesterol and aspartic transaminase (AST) enzyme compared to the other treatments with increasing the levels of MOL up to 0.50%. Morphological sections of small intestine revealed that villi height, width and height: width ratios were increased by the supplementation of different levels of MOLM (0.25 and 0.50%) but not significant except in duodenum villi width and in the ration between height and width. In general, the obtained results indicated that supplementation of 0.25% Moringa Oliefera Leaves, MOL can be used in broiler diets with low protein level to get the heaviest weight, best feed conversion, performance index, due to an increase in small intestinal absorption and activity. This, in turn, resulted in an increase in European efficiency index and economic efficiency under the experimental conditions.