Journal of Animal Feed Science and Technology

 Stress is inevitable for poultry even in state of the art facilities available in modern poultry industry. Birds have limited body resources for growth, reproduction as well as to cope with different environmental stressors. So, they seem to be particularly sensitive to different stressors including the environmental ones resulting alteration in their behavior and physiological responses. Present manuscript describes the different types of stressors and their effect on physio-biochemical parameters along with physiological mechanism to cope with stress.

Process of F0 value of 6 minutes was found to be sufficient for fish ball in curry product and fish balls without curry. To improve the quality of fish ball in curry product, different methods such as effect of setting, types of starch, levels of wet ingredients, different types of ingredients and pack and levels of transglutaminase enzyme were adopted to find out a suitable method and subjected to biochemical (pH and moisture), physical (gel strength and expressible water percentage) and organoleptic evaluation.  Of the different methods tried, levels of wet ingredients and different types of ingredients and pack showed an improvement in texture. Texture of fish balls showed an improvement with a reduction in the levels of wet ingredients. Plain fish balls without the curry (dry pack) showed superior texture followed by plain balls with curry, fish balls with wet ingredients packed dry. Although wet ingredients incorporated fish balls in curry had lower textural values (A grade in folding test and organoleptic textural score of 8.4), it was liked by the panelists as they preferred soft texture to rubbery ones.

 Two cases of bovine papillomatosis were brought to the Department of veterinary surgery and radiology, CVSc, SVVU, Tirupati. It was diagnosed as bovine papillomas on clinical observations of the wart lesions. Wart samples were collected aseptically from one of the case.

 Aflatoxin is the most studied mycotoxin, due to both its toxicity to animals and people and its high carcinogenic potential.  Out of aflatoxins group, AFB1 is the most toxic.  The main biological effects on farm animals, including malabsorption of various nutrients, coagulopathy, decreased tissue integrity, poor growth, poor efficiency of feed conversion, enhanced susceptibility to infection, vaccine failures, drug failures, reproductive problems in males and females and Increased sensitivity to temperature extremes. Toxic residues of aflatoxin in animal products present a hazard to public health. A variety of physical, chemical and biological approaches to counteract the aflatoxin problem have been reported in the literature on mycotoxins; but large-scale, practical and cost-effective methods for detoxifying aflatoxin-containing feedstuffs are currently not available.

 The present study was undertaken to study the immunomodulatory effect of Zinc Sulphate  in  layer chicks by monitoring the specific immunological responses,  to New Castle Disease and Infectious Bursal Disease Vaccines, Three groups of experimental chickens comprising of 20 chicks were taken  in which, first two groups of chicks were inoculated twice with Live Newcastle Disease and Infectious Bursal Disease antigens intra occularly. The chicks of group I served as Vaccinated and II group vaccinated with Zinc Sulphate as supplement while group III experimental birds served as Unvaccinated control. At the termination of experiment, the order of seroconversion to inoculated antigens i.e. New Castle Disease and Infectious Bursal Disease were II>I>III and II>I>III while in Total Protein and Globulin levels, Net body gains and Phagocytic Index were II>I>III respectively. Challenge studies were conducted on experimental chicks employing Virulent New castle Disease Virus and Virulent E.Coli (078 serotype) to study the specific and non- specific immune responses respectively. The results indicated better survival/protection rates for Zinc Sulphate treated chicks followed by that of vaccinated group and Unvaccinated chicken groups. It is concluded that Zinc sulphate is more efficient immunomodulator in evoking specific as well as non specific immune responses in layer chicks. So, Zinc Sulphate can be recommended in field use for enhancing the immunological responses besides net body weights in layer chicks along with the Scheduled vaccination programmes.

 A trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces Boulardii on performance of broilers. A total of 300 day old broilers were randomized in 5 groups, each with 6 replicates with (5x6) 10 birds per replicate.  Basal diet (D1) (control) was prepared as per BIS specification. In that of Lactobacillus was added @ 100 and 200g/t in D2 and D3 ; Saccharomyces Boulardii(Sb) was added @ 500 and 1000g/t of feed respectively up to 42 days of age. The diets were iso nitrogenous and iso caloric. The results revealed, a significant (P<0.05) improvement in body weight gain, better FCR with increased concentrations of Lactobacillus (D3) and Saccharomyces Boulardii (D5)  in feed. The results suggest that supplementation of Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces Boulardii @ 200g/t and 1000g/t of feed respectively improved the performance of the broilers by increasing the absorption capacity of the gut.

 Dairy animal rearing is an integral part of small holder farming system in India. The traditional feeding system for dairy cattle is based on the use of straw, natural grasses supplemented with a little or no concentrates. Poor nutrition has been identified as a major constraint to productivity in smallholder dairy farming. In the present situation pastures are degraded and the area under green forage crops is shrinking due to increase in human population and urbanization. As a result the crop residues are the bulk of feeds available. They have low nutritional value, bulky and fibrous. Feeding crop residue based total mixed rations is the efficient method of utilization of crop residues and to minimize the wastage. A field trail was conducted to study the groundnut haulm based complete ration on production performance of Dairy cattle. Feeding trail was conducted for 90 days on 20 milch cows, randomly divided in to two groups; control and treatment with ten animals in each group. The control group were offered conventional ration consisting of 8 hours of grazing, green forage, paddy straw and concentrate mixture and the treatment group were fed on groundnut haulm based complete ration consisting of crushed groundnut haulm and concentrate in 60:40 ratio. The dry matter intake, average milk yield (kg/day), 4% FCM (kg/day), milk fat content were increased significantly (Pd”0.01) in the treatment group. Dry matter intake and feed cost per kg of 4% FCM did not differ significantly between two groups but were lower in the control group as compared to treatment group. Net profit over feed cost was higher in treatment group (Rs.56.02), compared to control group (Rs.41.04).