Influence of Perch-Provision Timing on Anxiety and Fearfulness in Laying Hens.

Perches can enhance laying hen welfare, but their effectiveness might be age-dependent. We investigated early and late perch access effects on anxiety and fear in pullets through attention bias (AB) and tonic immobility (TI) tests. Pullets ( = 728) were raised with or without multi-level perches: CP (continuous perch access: 0-37 weeks), EP (early perch access: 0-17 weeks), LP (late perch access: 17-37 weeks), and NP (no perch access).

nano-silver and nutrient supplementation improves immunity and resistance against Newcastle disease virus challenge in broiler chickens.

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) interact with the microbes and host immune system to protect against diseases. Fertile broiler eggs ( = 900) were allotted to six groups: un-injected control, sham (sterile water), AgNPs (50 μg), AgNPs+Amino acids (Methionine-10 mg + Arginine-25 mg), AgNPs+Vitamins (Vit B1-72μg + Vit B6-140μg), and AgNPs+Trace Elements (Zn-80 μg and Se-0.3 μg) and incubated for 18 days.

Determination of Therapeutic and Safety Effects of Extract in Induced Inflammation in Rats.

Background: is a facultative plant with many medicinal applications. This study examined the anti-inflammatory activity of () in an arthritis animal model.

Materials And Methods: Seventy-Six Wistar Albino rats of either sex randomly divided into six groups (12/each).

A risk assessment of health, production, and resource occupancy for 4 laying hen strains across the lay cycle in a commercial-style aviary system.

Different strains of commercial laying hens have been molded by varying selection pressures, impacting their production, health, and behavior. Therefore, assumptions that all laying hen strains use the given resources within aviary systems similarly and maintain equal health and performance may be false. We investigated interactions among patterns of aviary resource use by 2 strains of white and 2 strains of brown laying hens (4 units per strain, 144 hens per unit) with daily egg production, location of egg laying, keel fractures, and footpad damage across the lay cycle.

Dust bathing in laying hens: strain, proximity to, and number of conspecifics matter.

As housing laying hens in aviaries becomes more common, understanding relationships between social context and performance of key behaviors, such as dust bathing (DB), is important. Expression of behaviors may be increased or repressed by the presence of conspecifics, and degree of behavioral synchrony can affect per hen resource allocation. We investigated relationships between number of hens on litter, number of hens simultaneously DB, and interbird distances (IBD) on space used to DB and duration of DB bouts across 4 laying hen strains (Hy-Line Brown [HB], Bovan Brown [BB], DeKalb White [DW], and Hy-Line [W36]) at 28 wk of age.

Space use by 4 strains of laying hens to perch, wing flap, dust bathe, stand and lie down.

The laying hen industry is implementing aviary systems intended to improve welfare by providing hens with more space and resources to perform species-specific behaviors. To date, limited research has examined spatial requirements of various strains of laying hens for performing key behaviors and none has been conducted within an alternative housing system. This study investigated the amount of space used by 4 strains of laying hens (Hy-Line Brown [HB], Bovans Brown [BB], DeKalb White [DW], and Hy-Line W36) to perform 5 different behaviors in the litter area of a commercial-style aviary.