Global Journal of Animal Scientific Research
Volume:2 Issue: 2, Spring 2014

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of stocking density (8, 12 and 16 birds/m2) on productivity and tonic immobility duration (a measure of fearfulness) of Thai crossbred chickens (n=900 birds) kept at 100 birds per pen. The results showed that stocking density had no significant (P>0.05) effect on body weight, body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio and mortality of chickens from the wk2 to 12. When stocking density was increased from 8 birds/m2 to 16 birds/m2, tonic immobility (TI) duration of the chickens increased significantly (P<0.05).However, the TI duration of chickens at a density of 12 birds/m2 was not significantly different from those of both the lower and the higher densities. In conclusion, Thai crossbred chickens could be stocked up to 12 birds/m2 without adverse effect on productivity and welfare when compared to those kept at 8 birds/m2.

Icacina oliviformis is common shrub found in the Northern Regions of Ghana. It has received very little attention regarding its use as feed supplement for ruminants. This study was carried out to determine the chemical composition and potential digestibility of the leaves of Icacina oliviformis (IOL) when incubated with or without ammonium hydrogen carbonate (NH4)2CO3 in the media. The media with (NH4)2CO3 was referred to as nitrogen sufficient (NS) and the one without (NH4)2CO3 was nitrogen deficient (ND). The results of the study showed that IOL had a dry matter content of 377.3g/Kg with a crude protein content of 173g/kg. The NDF, ADF and ADL were 439.5, 393.5 and 191.9g/kg respectively. The gross energy content was estimated to be 18.4MJ/Kg DM. There was no significant difference (p>0.05) between the ND and NS media for all the parameters measured except for ammonium nitrogen where the NS was significantly (p=0.021) higher than the ND. The potential degradability recorded for the IOL in both ND and NS media was 158.47 and 170.93 respectively. The rate of degradability of the ND was 0.055 and that of NS was 0.043. The pH and ammonium nitrogen recorded were all within the optimum range required for microbial cell synthesis and cellulolysis. The IOL has a potential to be included in the feed formulation for ruminants in Ghana.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are undifferentiated adult stem cells capable of self-renewal and differentiation with a broad tissue distribution essential for tissue repairing and maintenance. These cells are isolated and expanded in vitro and kept as stem cells throughout many generations while maintaining its capability of differentiation when receiving appropriate stimuli. They have intrinsic multilineage potential, and as such, under special experimental conditions, are capable of differentiating into neuronal and glial cells, both in vivo and in vitro. The MSC migrate to the injured site after being intravenously injected, and in there promote endogenous cell proliferation, diminish apoptosis, and reduce the neurological deficits resulting from cerebral ischemia. In this review we describe the many actions that the MSC exert on the injured nervous tissue, through their direct, paracrine, and systemic effects.

This study was conducted at the meat processing unit of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Nyankpala campus to determine the effect of sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum) leaf extract as a spice in hamburger. A total of 4 kg of meat (pork) was used. Two (2) g, 4 g and 6 g basil leaves were boiled separately in 0.5 litres of water for treatment 2, treatment 3 and treatment 4, respectively for 10 minutes. Thus each product contained the following: T1) control (without basil), T2) with 10 ml of basil extract per 1 kg of meat, T3) with 10 ml of basil extract per 1 kg of meat, T4) with 10 ml of basil extract per 1 kg of meat, Sensory analyses were conducted to examine the effect of basil on the sensory characteristics of the products. Sensory characteristics were not significantly different. There were significant differences in the protein contents of the products which cannot be solely attributed to the inclusion of basil leaf extract since the trend was not consistent. There were significant differences in the moisture, fat and pH content of the products.

The experiment was conducted in desert goats to evaluate the effect of nutrition and castration on carcass measurements, wholesale cuts and carcass composition of male desert goats. Seventy two male desert goats aged 4-5 months and weighing 12.1Kg were used in this experiment. The goats were divided randomly into three groups; each group (24 goats) was subdivided into two sub groups (12 goats) in Factorial experimental randomized design. The results revealed that nutrition and castration had no significant effect (p>0.05) on carcass length. Internal chest length, external chest length, distal foreleg length, proximal foreleg length, proximal hind leg length, foreleg circumference, hind leg circumference and eye muscle area were significantly affected (p<0.05) by nutrition, On the other hand, castration had no significant effects (p>0.05) on these measurements. Forequarter, rack, breast percentages had significantly affected (p<0.01) by nutrition, on the other hand, castration had no significant effect (p>0.05) on these cuts except loin cut percentage. Carcass dissected revealed that nutrition had greater muscle, bone and fat compared with grazing group. On the other hand, castration had no significant effect (p>0.05) on carcass composition except muscle to fat ratio where significantly affected (p<0.05) by castration and interaction of nutrition and castration.

Proper measurement of live body weight, which often is hard in the village settings due to lack of weighing scales, is a prerequisite for achieving so many lofty goals that are always associated with either medical or economic status of the animals. Under standard conditions, properly calibrated livestock scales are the most accurate and consistent method for determining body weight. Under farm conditions however, where scales and records may be absent, it may be difficult to know the weight of sheep and goats. Procedures for estimating weight of small ruminants in such conditions include the use of weight band, visual appraisal, and use of body linear measurements among others. All these measurements give estimates of the animals’ live body weights however, it has been shown in many studies that the heart girth is the most appropriate and confident parameter in live weight estimations for sheep and goats.

This paper reviewed researches on the use of Moringa oleiferain poultry diets. As the price of compound feed continues to escalate due to the high expense of conventional protein sources such as fishmeal and soybean meal there is an urgent need to look for alternative sources of protein and Moringa is one of such protein sources. Moringa has excellent nutritive value and therapeutic properties. The crude protein (CP) content of Moringa ranges from 71.2 to 391.7 g/kg and varies across the plant parts with the seeds having the highest CP content followed by flowers, leaves, whole plant, stems and pods. However, Moringa contains anti-nutritional factors such as tannins, phytates, trypsin inhibitors, saponins, oxalates and cyanide, which affect protein and mineral metabolism and availability to the animal.The availability of phosphorus to the birds can be enhanced through addition of phytase to break down phytate that binds phosphorus. It is apparent from the previous studies that inclusion of Moringa in poultry diets improves performance of chickens in terms of growth rate and egg production. As the cost of Moringa can be prohibitively high in some countries, economically inclusion levels should be determined.

Benghazi city is the second biggest city in Libya and getting bigger promptly. The city surrounded by farms. However, urban invasion has decreased the agriculture area a lot. In this study, survey on earthworm and TOC around the city has been done. Existing of earthworm is highly related to TOC around the city. Earthworm around the city were in Bouatni ≥ Jarotha≥ El-Guarsha≥Hawari soil. The study show decline in the species in Hawari area. Four species of earthworm were identified around Benghazi city. These were Aporrectodeatrapezoides, Aporrectodearosea, Eiseniaandrei, and Microsolexdubius. A. trapezoids formed the dominant and most widespread species of Benghazi.E. Andrei was new record in the area. This can lead to using earthworms as bioindicators, which appears to be a useful way to classify soil quality. Harsh environmental conditions and low organic matter may not only limit reproduction but the survival of adult earthworms from year to year.

The present study was carried out to investigate the impact of management systems, breeds, parity and stage of lactation on milk composition of Sudanese Arabi camels. Samples of camel milk were collected from 120 healthy she-camels from three different indigenous breeds (Kenani, Nefidia and Butana) in two different management systems (traditional nomadic system and semi intensive system). The milk samples were from camel of 5 parity numbers (1-5 parities) and 4 lactation stages. The highest significant percentages of camel milk fat, protein, lactose, total solids (TS) and solids non fat (SNF) were recorded for the camel in the traditional nomadic system (Nefidia and Butana) followed by the semi intensive system (Kenana breed). Moreover, the mean protein, lactose, TS and SNF values of camel milk were significantly higher during the first stage of lactation, while the mean for fat was significantly high during the third stage of lactation. Fat, protein, lactose, TS and SNF values of camel milk were higher in the fifth parity. Camel reared in the traditional nomadic system (Nefidia and Butana breed) and semi intensive system (Kenana breed) had significantly high content of milk fat compared to their counterparts. However, non significant differences in fat percentage during the fourth parity were observed. The TS and SNF of camel milk were significantly high at the first stage of lactation in comparison with the second and fourth ones. The results indicated that variations in chemical composition of camel milk were mainly attributed to factors such as management systems, breed, parity number and stage of lactation.

Bovine babesiosis is a hemo-protozoan disease diagnosed in a four-year old heavily tick infested Friesian-SokotoGudalli crossed bull. Clinical signs observed were pyrexia (rectal temperature of 40.8oC), anaemia, anorexia, haemoglobinuria, dysuria, salivation and lacrimination. The bull was weak and could not graze. The thin blood smear was positive for both Babesiabigemina and B. bovis. The bull’s condition improved after the administration of the following drugs; diminazineaceturate 7.0 mg/kg, antipyrine 8.6 mg/kg I.M. and application of acaricide, Flumethrin® on the body of the body of the animal. The management of the case was discussed in the paper.

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of supplementations with F. sycomorus leaf, fruit and their mixtures on intake, digestibility, body weight gain and carcass parameters of sheep fed basal diet hay, and to assess the economic benefit of the supplementation using partial budget analysis. The experiment was carried out at Gish Abay in Sekela Woreda, West Gojjam Zone; using twenty intact male yearling Washera sheep with a mean (±SD) initial body weight of 17.5±0.39kg. The animals were vaccinated against anthrax and pasteurellosis, dewormed and sprayed against internal and external parasites, respectively, before the start of the experiment. Experimental sheep were adapted for 15 days to the treatment feeds. The experiment consisted of digestibility trial of 7 days and feeding trial of 90 days. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with five blocks consisting of four animals per block based on their initial body weight. Dietary treatments were randomly assigned to one of the four treatment diets within a block. Treatments comprised of feeding natural pasture hay ad libitum (un-supplemented: T1) or natural hay supplementation with either F. sycomorus leaf (Treatment 2: T2), or F. sycomorus fruit (Treatment 4; T4), or mixture of F. sycomorus leaf and fruit in a ratio of 1:1(Treatment3; T3). The amount of supplements offered was 300 g/day on DM basis. Water and salt were available free choice. Natural pasture hay in the current study contained 8.0% crude protein (CP), 73.1% Neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and 43.6% acid detergent fiber (ADF). Sheep in the un-supplemented treatment consumed higher (p<0.001) basal dry matter intake ((581.6 g/day) as compared to supplemented group. However, total DM intake was higher for sheep in the supplemented group (T2-T4) compared to the un-supplemented (control). Supplementation significantly improved digestibility co-efficient of DM, organic matter (OM) (P<0.001) and CP (P<0.001). Supplementation highly increased (P<0.001) final body weight (FBW), feed conversion efficiency (FCE) and average daily gain (ADG). Sheep supplemented with T2 had significantly higher (P<0.001) FBW (21.6 kg), FCE (0.062) and ADG (45.1g/day) as compared to the un-supplemented treatment, which had 18.2 kg, 0.01 and 8g/day, respectively. Furthermore, Sheep in T2 had significantly higher (P<0.05) body weight change compared to the un-supplemented. Similar to biological performance, economic analysis also showed that supplementation with T2 resulted in better return compared to others. Thus, it can be concluded that supplementation in general improved animal performance. Among the supplements, however, T2 is biologically optimum and economically feasible.

Mastitis is causes considerable economic losses due to decrease in the quality and quantity of milk production, increases of the cost of treatment and veterinary services, and animal waste (increases of waste product). Inflammation of the udder caused by a traumatic event, toxic agent, or invasion of microorganisms may be indicated by an increase in numbers of somatic cells in milk. Bovine TLR9 is located on BTA22. The TLR9 mRNA consists of two exons and is 3255 bp including 5′ and 3′ UTRs, The genomic size of TLR9 is 4264 bp and the protein is 1029 aa. Blood samples were collected from 150 dairy cattle from six herds. DNA extraction was performed by salting out method. A fragment of 245 bp from intron 1 was amplified by the polymerase chain reaction and analyzed by single-strand conformation polymorphism to get the patterns of single-stranded DNA separated by native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and visualized by silver staining. Nine genotypes were revealed with the frequencies of 0.8150 (AA), 0.1481 (AB), 0.2666 (AC), 0.1704 (AD), 0.8880 (BB), 0.1480 (BC), 0.5920 (BD), 0.2960 (CC) and 0.1407 (CD). The allele frequencies for A, B, C and D were 0.3741, 0.2000, 0.2407 and 0.1852; respectively.Chi-square test didn''t confirm Hardy-Weinberg (H-W) equilibrium for this locus. Associations between polymorphisms and the trait studied were evaluated using the MIXED procedure of the SAS 9.1 software. Results showed that the somatic cell score not have a significant association with genotypes of TLR9 gene.

The purpose of this study was to explore the management practices of dairy cattle production in Central Zone of Tigray. A total of 160 dairy cattle holding households were selected by systematic random sampling technique. The study employed multiple methods of data analysis including descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, T-test and qualitative analysis. Majority of the urban dairy farmers depend on hay, crop residues and concentrates for feeding their dairy cattle. Whereas, the peri-urban dairy farmers rely on dry and green roughages but less on concentrate feeds. In the urban areas, pipe water was the most common water source for the dairy cattle whereas, in the peri-urban areas, the use of river was very high. Significantly (P<0.05) better watering frequency was observed in urban than peri-urban areas. Access to veterinary services was significantly (P<0.05) better in urban areas than the peri-urban areas. About 44% of the peri-urban dairy farmers trek their dairy cattle more than 6km in searching veterinary services. Waste management was relatively problematic in urban areas (36.25%) as compared to the peri-urban areas (13.75%). There is also promising urban-peri-urban linkage in dairy product and by-product supply. Therefore, an appropriate feeding, watering, health management, housing and manure utilization could be the management options to improve the existing problems.

A study was conducted with broiler chickens to determine the effect of some additives in drinking water on transport stress. Two hundred forty Ross 308 broilers aged 35 d were randomly assigned to 8 treatments with factorial arrangement (2×2×2) with 3 types of additives (vitamin C, echium amoenum and lavender extract) and tow levels (0 and 1200 ppm per liter of drinking water). Each treatment consisted of 4 replicates with 8 birds in each. On d 43, after collecting blood from the brides (2 birds from each replicate), all birds were transported (2 h under 8˚c temperature), then blood recollected. After slaughtering breast and thigh meat pH and water loss detected. Results showed that transport stress decreased blood glucose (mg/dl) and LDL (mg/dl), heterophile, H: L ratio but increased HDL, lymphocytes, eosinophile and heamatocrite of transported chickens (P<0.05). Additives didn’t have significant effect on glucose, Cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL and LDL (P>0.05). Combination of 3 dietary supplements significantly decreased Heterophiles and H: L ratio of transported Birds (P<0.05). Echium amoenum and lavender extract were significantly lowered the breast meat pH. Broiler chickens which get lavender extract and Vitamin C have the highest L* and the lowest a* and lowest b* values belonged to vitamin C treatment birds (P<0.05). Drip losses of breast meat appeared to be significantly (P<0.05) lower in the combination of three dietary treatment received birds. (P<0.05). It is concluded that transport induced the reduction of blood glucose and LDL, heterophil, H: L ratio which are indexes of the stress in broiler chickens and combination of 3 supplements alleviate the adverse effects of transport stress.

Garcinia kola also called bitter kola and African wonder nut has been shown to contain vitamins, minerals, proteins and carbohydrates in varying quantities and phytochemicals such as alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, cyanogeinic glycosides, saponins among many others that give its characteristics nutritional and pharmaceutical properties. The use of Garcinia kola as a nutritional plant will depend on the nutritive value of the seed and other parts, its overall effect on animals performance and human health as well as market forces affects on its demand and supply. This Paper reviews published data on the nutritive and pharmaceutical values of Garcinia kola as it affects the health and performance of human beings and animals.

This study was conducted to evaluate growth performance, carcass and non carcass characteristics of Horro Rams under different management practices at Ambo University. A total of 24 Horro rams were randomly assigned to the following three treatments: T1= Day 1 rest before slaughter (Animals slaughtered after transportation to experimental site), T2= Rhodes hay ad libitum and T3= Rhodes hay ad libitum + 400 g concentrate head/day. The initial, fortnight and slaughter live body weight were taken at the initial, fortnightly and at the end of the feeding trial. Average daily gain (ADG) was calculated as change in live body weight over total duration of fattening period. All the carcass and non carcass components were taken and recorded. Data were analyzed using the General linear model procedures of Statistical Analysis System Software 9.2. ADG of concentrate supplemented Horro rams (117.36 g) was greater (P < 0.001) than animals fed Rhodes hay ad libitum (11.11 g). Average hot carcass weight of supplemented animals (13.5 kg) was heavier (P < 0.001) than animals fed on Rhodes hay ad libitum and slaughtered after day one rest of transportation (8.4 and 8.93 kg, respectively). Concentrate supplementation had significant and positive influence on ADG, carcass and non carcass components of Horro rams. Therefore, management practices like optimum feeding would improve the growth performance, carcass and non carcass characteristics of Horro sheep