Poultry Science Journal
Volume:2 Issue: 1, Winter-Spring 2014

In this experiment, the influence of prebiotic and probiotic supplementation in the broiler breeder diets on body weight, mortality, feed intake, egg production, hatchability and humoral immunity response was investigated. A total number of 13140 female and 1260 male breeders (Cobb 500) with 26 wks of age were allocated to three treatments with six replicates (800 birds each replicate). Breeders were fed control basal diet, basal diet supplemented with prebiotic (mannan oligosaccharide) or probiotic (Protexin®) for 17 weeks. Body weight, feed intake and egg production were measured weekly during 26-40 wks of age. The hatchability of eggs was recorded on weeks 38, 39, and 40. Antibody production was recorded after 8 wks of prebiotic and probiotic supplementation. Prebiotic supplementation did not affect feed intake, the percentages of egg production and settable eggs percents. Prebiotic increased egg hatchability and reduced the percentages of infertile eggs, as well as dead embryo-in-shells. Antibody titers against influenza and reovirus were higher in prebiotic fed group, but there were no significant differences among the other blood antibody titers. Probiotic had no significant effect on the considered parameters. In conclusion, findings of present study showed that prebiotic improved egg hatchability and humoral immunity of broiler breeders.

This experiment was conducted for evaluating the humoral immune responses induced by Poly Lactide-co-Glycolide Acid (PLGA) microspheres coupled inactivated Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) vaccine in comparison to an ‘in-house’ prepared inactivated and a live commercial vaccine. PLG microparticles containing inactivated NDV were prepared by a double emulsion technique based on solvent evaporation method. The size of the NDV coupled PLG microparticles was determined by Electron Microscopy. NDV coupled PLG microparticles were spherical having smooth surface, hollow core inside with no pores on the surface. The experiment was conducted in four groups of chickens (n=15). The encapsulation efficiency of NDV coupled PLG microparticles was determined by protein estimation and HA activity in elute. The mean (± SE) size of PLG microspheres was found to be 2.409 ± 0.65 µm. The mean percent of encapsulation efficiency of PLG microspheres coupled to NDV was assessed based on the total protein content and HA activity in elute was found to be 8.03 ± 0.50 and 12.5 ± 0.00, respectively. In conclusion, the results of the experiment showed that PLGA coupled NDV vaccine elicited stronger and prolonged humoral immune response in chickens, in comparison to the other tested vaccines, as assessed by haemagglutination inhibition and enzyme linked immuno sorbent asaay titers.

Drug prescription errors are a common cause of adverse incidents and may lead to adverse outcomes, sometimes in subtle ways, being compounded by circumstances or further errors. Therefore, it is important that veterinarians issue the correct drug at the correct dose. Using two or more prescribed drugs may lead to drug interactions. Some drug interactions are very harmful and may have potential threats to the patient''s health that is called antagonism. In a survey study, medication errors of 750 prescriptions, including dosage errors and drug interactions were studied. The results indicated that 20.8% of prescriptions had at least one drug interaction. The most interactions were related to antibiotics (69.1%), Sulfonamides (46.7%), Methenamine (46.7%) and Florfenicol (20.2%). Analysis of dosage errors indicated that total drugs consumed by broilers in the summer are more than winter seasons. Based on these results, avoiding medication errors are important in the balanced prescribing of drugs and regular education of veterinary practitioners in a certain interval is needed.

This experiment was conducted to determine the effects of Myrtle Essential Oil (MEO) on growth performance, carcass characteristics, antibody titer and blood parameters of broiler chickens. A total of 200 Ross 308 broiler chickens were allocated to five dietary treatments with four replicates of 10 birds each. Dietary treatments were prepared by formulating a corn-soybean meal-based diet free of antibiotics (Control) and supplementing the basal diet with three levels of MEO at 100, 200, 300 mg/Kg or antibiotic Flavophospholipol (FPL) at 600 mg/Kg. The results showed that diets supplemented with MEO and FPL increased the feed intake, body weight gain and improved the feed conversion ratio compared to the control treatment (P). The relative carcass weight was significantly increased, whereas the weight of gastrointestinal tract and liver were decreased in broilers fed MEO (P). Supplementing the basal diet with MEO increased the antibody titers against Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) and Newcastle disease Virus (NDV), although supplementing diet with 200 mg/Kg of MEO was more effective (P). Broilers fed MEO diets especially at the level of 300 mg/Kg had a lower white blood cells count and heterophil, heterophil to lymphocyte ratio, mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular hemoglobin, but a higher lymphocyte and red blood cells count (P). In conclusion, data showed that diet supplemented with MEO improved the growth performance and increased antibody titers against AIV and NDV, especially at the level of 200 mg/Kg, in broiler chickens and could be an adequate alternative to antibiotics.

With the complexity and amount of information in a wide variety of comparative performance reports in poultry production, making a decision is difficult. This problem is overcomed only when all data can be put into a common unit. For this purpose, five different decision making analysis approaches including Maximin, Equally likely, Weighted average, Ordered weighted averages and Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution were used to choose the best broiler strain among three ones based on their comparative performance and carcass characteristics. Commercial broiler strains of 6000 designated as R, A, and C (each strain 2000) were randomly allocated into three treatments of five replicates. In this study, all methods showed similar results except Maximin approach. Comparing different methods indicated that strain C with the highest world share market has the best performance followed by strains R and A.

One experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different levels of germinated barley (GB) on performance and carcass traits in broiler chickens. The experiment lasted for 5 weeks starting from 7 days of age and ending at 42 days of age. Chicks (Ross 308) fed six dietary treatments including a corn-soy diet (corn diet), a barley-soy diet (barley diet), the barley diet plus enzyme (enzyme barley diet), and 3 other diets that GB was replaced with barley at levels of 33, 66 and 100 percent in barley diet (33% BB diet, 66% GB diet and GB diet, respectively). Data were analyzed in a completely randomized design. Results indicated that birds fed on barley diet had significantly lower performance than other groups (P<0.05). Supplementing of β-glucanase enzyme to barley diet as well as replacing GB with barley improved the performance of broilers. Birds fed GB diet had significantly higher carcass yield than other treatments (P<0.05). The lowest abdominal fat percentage was observed in birds fed barley diet or corn diet. It is concluded that, replacing GB with barley, especialy at 33% levels, is more effective than supplementing of β-glucanase enzyme to barley diet in improving live performance of broiler chickens.