Journal of Livestock Science and Technology
Volume:3 Issue: 1, Jun 2015

This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of Satureja khuzistanica essential oils (SKEO) on performance, serum metabolites and differential counts of white blood cells in broiler chickens. A total of 280 one-day-old straight-run Cobb 500 broiler chickens were allocated into seven treatment groups with four replicates of 10 birds each from day 1 to 42 of age. The birds were continuously given drinking water supplemented with 0 (Control–), 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 mg/L SKEO or 1,000 mg/L Tween-80 (control) as seven experimental treatments. During overall period (1 to 42 days) of the study, broilers received water supplemented with 300, 400 and 500 mg/L SKEO consumed less (P 0.05) from either of the groups. Broilers received water supplemented with 300 mg/kg SKEO had lower (P 0.05) by treatments at days 21 and 42 of age. Similarly, water supplementation with SKEO had no effect on differential counts of white blood cells and heterophil to lymphocyte (H/L) ratio at days 21 and 42 of age. Overall results of the present study showed that drinking water supplementation with SKEO had no beneficial effect on growth performance, serum metabolite concentrations and differential counts of white blood cells in broiler chickens and water supplementation with 100 and 300 mg/L SKEO decreased broiler growth performance.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the profitability of hatchery litter recycling into poultry feedstuff supplement. The data were collected in 2011 in 4 provinces, by direct interviewing of all hatcheries which used the hatchery litter drying machine. Net Present Value (NPV), Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR), and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) methods were applied for this analysis. In the studied hatcheries, various methods were identified for hatchery litter handling, including municipal litter removal, drying, landfill disposal, and waste disposal well. The results indicated that only 39.1% of the hatcheries were recycling their litters; with 75% processing outside the hatchery. The average IRR of hatcheries’ litter recycling was equal to 8.2%. According to the results, 22.4% of the litter processing was fixed costs, and the remaining 77.6% consisted of variable costs. It is concluded that litter recycling activity using a litter drying machine it is not economical in the studied areas based on BCR, IRR and NPV evaluation measures.

The aim of present experiment was to investigate the feeding value of wild pistachio leaf (khinjuk leaf, KL) for Arabi sheep. The digestibility and fermentation of diets containing different amounts of khinjuk (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30%) were measured. Then, the effect of presence of KL in the diet and its tannin content on the digestibility of alfalfa hay (Alfa), wheat straw (WS) and soybean meal (SBM) was studied by gas production (GP) technique. There was significant difference between the digestibility of dry matter (DM) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) in diets containing KL compared with control (P

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of balancing low protein diets for methionine and lysine on performance of early lactation Holstein cows under hot environmental temperature. Twenty one multiparous Holstein cows in early lactation were allocated to three experimental rations including, 1) High protein ration with 17.5% CP, 2) Medium protein ration with 16% CP and 12 g/d rumen protected methionine (RP Met), 3) Low protein ration with 14.5% CP, 14 g/d RP Met and 5 g/d rumen protected lysine. There was no effect of ration on milk yield and milk fat percentage, but milk protein percent, N efficiency for milk production, milk urea nitrogen (MUN) and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) were affected significantly. N excreted in urine, N balance and creatinine concentration in urine decreased significantly by feeding low protein diets. Plasma concentrations of non-essential AA were not affected by treatments but, Methionine, Valine and Leucine concentrations were affected significantly. These results suggest that low protein diets with rumen protected amino acids can be an alternative for high protein diets for dairy cows under hot climates.

To calculate partial and total productivity of production factors in broiler farms in Yazd province, 72 manufacturing units were selected based on simple random sampling method and their information and statistics were collected for one production period in the second half of 2013. To measure productivity, the Cobb-Douglas production function was estimated using classic and fuzzy regression methods. Workforce and energy had significant positive effects on broiler meat production. Feed had the highest coefficient (0.71 in the classic regression and 0.58 in fuzzy regression) and was the most effective production factor. Partial productivity of all variables and total production factors were also calculated. Productivity of total production factors was 1.90 in classic regression; concerning fuzzy regression with confidence interval of 90%, upper and lower bounds were 2.86 and 1.37 respectively.

The pituitary-specific transcription factor (PIT-1) gene is a candidate gene for growth, carcass and also for milk yield traits. In dairy farm animals, the main goal of the selection is the improvement of milk yield and composition. The genes of milk proteins and hormones are excellent candidate genes for linkage analysis with quantitative trait loci (QTL) because of their biological significance on the quantitative traits of interest. Thus, the objective of this study was to analyze the association between polymorphism of the PIT1 gene and milk protein percentage in Holstein cattle sampled from a dairy farm included 1000 animals in Khorasan Razavi province, east of Iran. A total of 100 cattle were randomly sampled in the study. Genomic DNA was extracted from the whole blood. One pair primers was used for amplification of PIT1 gene and PCR products were electrophoresed on 1% agarose gel. Then PCR products were digested with HinfI restriction enzyme. The genotypic data were analyzed using PopGene software. Allelic frequencies of A and B were 0.25 and 0.75, respectively. Frequencies of AA, AB and BB genotypes were 0.06, 0.40 and 0.54, respectively. The number of observed alleles, number of effective alleles, expected heterozygosity, observed heterozygosity, mean of heterozygosity, expected hemozygosity, observed hemozygosity, Nei’s index and Shanon’s index were 2.00, 1.66, 0.37, 0.40, 0.38, 0.62, 0.59, 0.37 and 0.56, respectively. Results of Chi-square test showed that the population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The results of the association study between milk protein percentage and the observed genotypes indicated that the effect of genotype on protein percentage was significant (P

To determine the role of DDX3Y gene in spermatogenesis and infertility in bulls, blood samples were collected from five infertile bulls (azoospermic; no sperm in the semen) at the Animal Breeding Center in Karaj, Iran. The recommended human primers by EAA/EQMN were investigated using the BLASTn database for STS marker detection. Alignment of STS marker genes with bovine genome was performed. Primer Premier 5 and CLC Main Workbench 5.5 softwares were used in designing common primer for the bovine and human DDX3Y gene. Genomic DNA screening of peripheral blood was conducted for detection of DDX3Y gene deletion in the Y chromosome by the PCR method. The bioinformatics analysis of human binding-primers of STS markers indicated that there was no chance connection and target fragment production for bovine samples. Investigation of DDX3Y gene on fertile bovine samples showed that the designed primer could detect the target gene as well. The results showed that three bulls had partial deletion in DDX3Y gene as a cause of their infertility. In conclusion, the DDX3Y gene can be a valuable marker to detect infertility in young male calves.

To compare different QTL mapping methods, a population with genotypic and phenotypic data was simulated. In Bayesian approach, all information of markers can be used along with combination of distributions of SNP markers. It is assumed that most of the markers (95%) have minor effects and a few numbers of markers (5%) exert major effects. The simulated population included a basic population of 1020 non-relative cattle that was continuously crossed for 4 generations to make disequilibrium linkage among QTL position and markers. In all generations, 20 bulls were mated with 1,000 cows and each cow produced only one offspring. Whole tree family included 4100 head of livestock. Genotype of 10000 SNPs on 5 chromosomes at equal distance (0.05 cM) in the total population was simulated. The length of each chromosome was 100 cM. Simulated trait was milk production. Progeny of the first to third generation had record but the basic population and fourth generation of offspring did not have any record. Therefore, from the total population of 4100 heads, 3000 cattle had record. Two different models, Bayz A and Bayz B, were used to analyze QTL linked to the SNP markers. Analysis was conducted by BAYZ software. SNPs with more than 0.6 effect or Bayes factor (BF) greater than 5.5 were considered as QTL. The resultant analysis of two models of BAYZ A and BAYZ B were 7 and 9 QTL locations on 5 chromosomes, respectively. QTL position identified by BAYZ B method was matched on simulated location, but showed a false positive on chromosome 4. QTL positions identified by BAYZ A method were located near by the simulated positions, but with many false positive points.