• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제15권12호
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• pp.1776-1783
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• 2002

A population segregating for the naked neck (Na) gene was used to evaluate its effect on fast growing broilers at heat stress. An experimental stock comparable to those of modern broilers was established by backcrossing to colour synthetic male and female lines. Matings between heterozygous (Na/na) males and females produced normally feathered (na/na), heterozygous (Na/na) and homozygous (Na/Na) chicks for the present study. Day old to seven week old coloured broilers of three genotypes viz. normally feathered (na/na), heterozygous naked neck (Na/na) and homozygous naked neck (Na/Na) were compared for heat dissipation, growth performance, body conformation traits, blood biochemical parameters and carcass traits in tropical climate. In hot climate, naked neck broilers had significantly less body temperature and better heat dissipation capabilities as compared to normal broilers. The naked neck broilers had significantly higher body weight and better feed conversion ratio than na/na broilers. The Na/Na or Na/na broilers exhibited higher giblet yield, blood loss and lower feather mass compared to na/na broilers. The results indicated that the reduction in feather coverage in Na/Na and Na/na broilers facilitates better heat dissipation with lower body temperature, more body weight gain, better FCR and carcass traits compared to normal broilers.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.560-563
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• 2004

The study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of naked neck gene on mortality, cell mediated and humoral immune response in white plumage broiler population. The mortality of homozygous naked neck (Na/Na) broilers (11.71%) was comparatively lower than that of heterozygous naked neck (Na/na) (12.28%) and normally feathered (na/na) (13.59%) broilers. The humoral immune response was measured against (1% v/v) sheep red blood cells (SRBC) for total haemagglutinin (HA) antibody, 2-mercaptoethanol resistance (MER) or (IgG) antibody and 2-mercaptoethanol sensitive (MES) or (IgM) antibody titre on 7 days post-immunization. The titre was expressed as log2 of the highest dilution which shows complete haemagglutination. Total HA titers of Na/Na and Na/na (11.05$\pm$0.53 and 11.09$\pm$0.38) were comparatively higher than that of na/na (10.26$\pm$0.42). The MES antibody titre of Na/Na (8.50$\pm$0.53) and Na/na (7.63$\pm$0.45) broilers were significantly higher as compared to na/na (6.11$\pm$0.32) broilers. The MER titre of na/na genetic group (4.15$\pm$0.42) was significantly higher than Na/Na (2.55$\pm$0.37) and comparatively higher than Na/na (3.45$\pm$0.38) broilers. In vivo cell response to phytohaemagglutinin-P (PHA-P), measured as Foot Index (FI) in mm expressed significantly higher response in Na/na (0.473$\pm$0.05) and Na/Na (0.413$\pm$0.04) broilers as compared to na/na (0.304$\pm$0.03) broilers. The result of present study suggested that white plumage naked neck broilers had better immune response as compared to normally feathered broilers.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제15권2호
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• pp.166-171
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• 2002

The main objective of the present study is to estimate the crossbreeding parameters in respect to serum lysozyme level in broilers. The experiment involved a complete $4{\times}4$ diallel design using four synthetic broiler lines namely Coloured Synthetic Male Line (CSML), White Synthetic Male Line (WSML), Coloured Synthetic Female Line (CSFL) and Naked Neck Line (NNL). The lyophilised Micrococcus lysodeikticus suspension was used to detect the lysozyme level in the serum of birds. The data were analysed by least-squares method to find the effects of genetic and non-genetic factors using appropriate model. The crossbreeding parameters for this trait were estimated by complete diallel model assuming the effect of each synthetic line as fixed. The results indicated that additive and non-additive genetic variation attributed to minor genes at many loci is important for the genetic control of serum lysozyme level in chickens. Total non-additive components of variance also showed significant amount of heterosis in crossbred progenies, and therefore exploitation of non-additive component of variance is possible for improvement in serum lysozyme level in broilers. The overall results suggested that for commercial broiler production system, the selection for specialised line on the basis of serum lysozyme level and subsequent crossing of parent lines could enhance the immunocompetence status in relation to serum lysozyme level in crossbred chickens.