Improving Gander Reproductive Efficacy in the Context of Globally Sustainable Goose Production

The goose is a popular poultry species, and in the past two decades the goose industry has become highly profitable across the globe. Ganders low reproductive performance remains a barrier to achieving high fertility and hatchability in subsequent flocks. To address the global demand for cheaper animal protein, various methodologies for improving avian (re)production should be explored. A large amount of literature is available on reproduction traits and techniques for commercial chicken breeder flocks, while research on improved reproduction in ganders has been carried out to a lesser extent. The present review aims to provide a comprehensive literature overview focusing on recent advancements/techniques used in improving gander reproductive efficacy in the context of ensuring a globally sustainable goose industry.

Combined Effect of Shegandilong Granule and Doxycycline on Immune Responses and Protection Against Avian Infectious Bronchitis Virus in Broilers

Infectious bronchitis (IB) causes significant economic losses to commercial chicken farms due to the failures of vaccine immunization or incomplete protection. In this study, we evaluated the combination effect of Shegandilong (SGDL) granule (a traditional Chinese veterinary medicine) and doxycycline on the prevention of IBV infection and injury in the respiratory tract in broilers. A total of 126, 7-day-old broilers were randomly divided into four groups after vaccination. Group I served as a control. Broilers in Group II were given doxycycline, and Group III was given SGDL granule through drinking water. Broilers in Group IV were given SGDL granule and doxycycline by drinking water. Broilers in all groups were challenged with IBV through intraocular and intranasal routes at day 28. Results showed that the anti-IBV antibody level was higher in group IV compared with the level in other groups. Immunohistochemistry and ELISA results showed that an increase of immunoglobulin A (IgA) was observed in the trachea with the maximum level observed at day 14. In addition, SGDL granule + doxycycline effectively inhibited IBV replication and stopped IBV propagation from the trachea to the lung; modulated the mRNA expressions of IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, and IFN-γ; and extenuated the histopathology lesions in trachea and lung. These data imply that a combination of SGDL granule and doxycycline is effective in preventing IBV infection and respiratory tract injury in broilers.

Automated identification of chicken distress vocalisations using deep learning models

The annual global production of chickens exceeds 25 billion birds, and they are often housed in very large groups, numbering thousands. Distress calling triggered by various sources of stress has been suggested as an "iceberg indicator" of chicken welfare. However, to date, the identification of distress calls largely relies on manual annotations, which is very labour-intensive and time-consuming. Thus, a novel light-VGG11 was developed to automatically identify chicken distress calls using recordings (3,363 distress calls and 1,973 natural barn sounds) collected on intensive chicken farms. The light-VGG11 was modified from VGG11 with a significantly smaller size in parameters (9.3 million vs 128 million) and 55.88% faster detection speed while displaying comparable performance, i.e., precision (94.58%), recall (94.89%), F1-score (94.73%), and accuracy (95.07%), therefore more useful for model deployment in practice. To further improve the light-VGG11's performance, we investigated the impacts of different data augmentation techniques (i.e., time masking, frequency masking, mixed spectrograms of the same class, and Gaussian noise) and found that they could improve distress calls detection by up to 1.52%. In terms of precision livestock farming, our research opens new opportunities for developing technologies used to monitor the output of distress calls in large, commercial chicken flocks.

Bioconversion of Fermented Barley Waste by Black Soldier Fly Hermetia illucens L. (Diptera; Stratiomyidae)

Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL), Hermetia illucens (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) are widely used as bioconverter agents for various organics waste, and BSF pupae are often used as fodder for poultry and fish, because the BSF pupae have a high protein content. This study focused on applying BSFL as a bioconversion agent of the fermented barley waste to convert it to larvae biomass. Prior to application, barley waste was fermented either using effective microorganisms-4 (EM4), leachate, and water for seven days. The fermented barley waste was applied as feeding material for BSFL at the rate of 100 mg/larvae/days. As control commercial chicken fed (CF) was applied as feeding material at a similar feeding rate. During this study, waste reduction index (WRI), and efficiency of digested feed (ECD) were calculated, and the protein content in the BSF prepupae was analyzed. The results of this study showed that BSFL fed with CF produces the shortest development time (27 days), and high consumption rate. BSFL fed with barley waste fermented with EM4 (BE) and Leachate (BL) produces a larval period of 31 and 30 days respectively, and statistically those were not significantly different from control. This study showed that treatments of BE and BL, produced a very high larval survival rates, 98.67% and 97.00% respectively, and those two treatments were not statistically different from the control (96.67%). Although the control treatment resulted in a higher WRI compared to the other treatments, but the ECD of BE and BL treatments were higher than the ECD of the control. From this study, it can be concluded that BSFL has a good ability to convert fermented barley waste as well as controls, and the prepupae has a high protein content (42%), so BSFL fed with fermented barley waste has the opportunity to be used as a fed for poultry and fish.

The use of disinfectant in barn cleaning alters microbial composition and increases carriage of Campylobacter jejuni in broiler chickens

To maintain food safety and flock health in broiler chicken production, biosecurity approaches to keep chicken barns free of pathogens are important. Canadian broiler chicken producers must deep clean their barns with chemical disinfectants at least once annually (full disinfection; FD) and may wash with water (water-wash; WW) throughout the year. However, many producers use FD after each flock, assuming a greater efficacy of more stringent cleaning protocols, although little information is known regarding how these two cleaning practices affect pathogen population and gut microbiota. In the current study, a cross-over experiment over four production cycles was conducted in seven commercial chicken barns to compare WW and FD. We evaluated the effects of barn cleaning method on the commercial broiler performance, cecal microbiota composition, pathogen occurrence and abundance, as well as short-chain fatty acid concentrations in the month-old broiler gut. The 30-day body weight and mortality rate were not affected by the barn cleaning methods. The WW resulted in a modest but significant effect on the structure of broiler cecal microbiota (weighted-UniFrac; adonis p = 0.05, and unweighted-UniFrac; adonis p = 0.01), with notable reductions in Campylobacter jejuni occurrence and abundance. In addition, the WW group had increased cecal acetate, butyrate and total short-chain fatty acid concentrations, which were negatively correlated with C. jejuni abundance. Our results support the use of WW over FD to enhance the activity of the gut microbiota and potentially reduce zoonotic transmission of C. jejuni in broiler production without previous disease challenges.

KUALITAS SENSORIS NUGGET AYAM KUB

KUB chicken is the superior village chicken of the Agricultural Research and Development Agency with egg production reaching 180 eggs/ year. With this advantage, KUB chickens have been cultivated and developed since 2016. In addition to producing quite a lot of eggs, KUB chickens also have delicious meat to eat. One of the most popular processed chicken meat especially for children is chicken nuggets. KUB chicken nuggets were tested for sensory testing including color, texture, aroma and taste for several panelists. The experimental design used in this study was a completely randomized design. The sensory test results showed that KUB chicken nuggets were preferred compared to commercial chicken nuggets. Keywords: KUB Chicken, Nuggets, Sensory quality

Epidemiological Dynamics of Extended-Spectrum β-Lactamase- or AmpC β-Lactamase-Producing Escherichia coli Screened in Apparently Healthy Chickens in Uganda

The dynamics of extended-spectrum β-lactamase- (ESBL-) and AmpC β-lactamase-producing bacteria (which are deadly groups of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria) have not been well understood in developing countries. This raises major concerns to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) control. We investigated the prevalence and factors linked to the fecal carriage of ESBL- or AmpC-producing Escherichia coli (ESBL-/AmpC-EC) in commercial chickens. Cloacal swabs from 400 birds were sampled and submitted to the Central Diagnostic Laboratory for ESBL-/AmpC-EC screening by culture methods using MacConkey agar supplemented with cefotaxime. Epidemiological data were collected using a structured questionnaire and plausible risk factor analyses prepared by R software using X2 test and logistic regression modeling. Results showed that the prevalence of ESBL-/AmpC-EC was 17.5%. Univariable screening hypothesized that carriage was probably influenced by a type of commercial chicken, geographical location, age group, flock size, and housing system ( p < 0.05 ). Modeling exposed that broiler birds were at a higher risk of being ESBL-/AmpC-EC carriers (COR = 9.82, CI = 3.85–25.07). Birds from Wakiso Town Council (COR = 4.89, CI = 2.04–11.72) and flocks of 700–1200 birds were also at a higher risk of harboring ESBL-/AmpC-EC (COR = 2.41, CI = 1.11–5.23). Birds aged 4 months and below were more susceptible to ESBL-/AmpC-EC carriage compared with those aged 1 month and below being 6.33 times (CI = 1.65–24.35) likely to be carriers. The occurrence of ESBL-/AmpC-EC in flocks suggests possible treatment failures while managing colibacillosis. Consequently, injudicious antimicrobial use should be replaced with an accurate diagnosis by bacterial culture and sensitivity testing so as to circumvent AMR emergence, spread, and associated losses.

Assessment of linkage disequilibrium patterns between structural variants and single nucleotide polymorphisms in three commercial chicken populations

BackgroundStructural variants (SV) are causative for some prominent phenotypic traits of livestock as different comb types in chickens or color patterns in pigs. Their effects on production traits are also increasingly studied. Nevertheless, accurately calling SV remains challenging. It is therefore of interest, whether close-by single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are in strong linkage disequilibrium (LD) with SVs and can serve as markers. Literature comes to different conclusions on whether SVs are in LD to SNPs on the same level as SNPs to other SNPs. The present study aimed to generate a precise SV callset from whole-genome short-read sequencing (WGS) data for three commercial chicken populations and to evaluate LD patterns between the called SV and surrounding SNPs.ResultsThe final callset consisted of 12,294,329 bivariate SNPs, 4,301 deletions (DEL), 224 duplications (DUP), 218 inversions (INV) and 117 translocation breakpoints (BND). While average LD between DELs and SNPs was at the same level as between SNPs and SNPs, LD between other SVs and SNPs was strongly reduced (DUP: 40 %, INV: 27 %, BND: 19 % of between-SNP LD). A main factor for the reduced LD was the presence of local minor allele frequency differences, which accounted for 50 % of the difference between SNP – SNP and DUP – SNP LD. This was potentially accompanied by lower genotyping accuracies for DUP, INV and BND compared with SNPs and DELs. An evaluation of the presence of tag SNPs (SNP in highest LD to the variant of interest) further revealed DELs to be slightly less tagged by WGS SNPs than WGS SNPs by other SNPs. This difference, however, was no longer present when reducing the pool of potential tag SNPs to SNPs located on four different chicken genotyping arrays.ConclusionsThe results imply that genomic variance due to DELs in the chicken populations studied can be captured by different SNP marker sets as good as variance from WGS SNPs, whereas separate SV calling might be advisable for DUP, INV, and BND effects.