A comparative studies among golden Montazah, El-Salam and Fayoumi chickens [electronic resouce]: 1- response to acute heat stress as early heat conditioning procedure.

Includes references.

This study aimed to compare the response of three strains of domestic chickens to acute heat stress as early heat conditioning procedure and its consequences affects on growth, egg production and incubation performance. In this study 1200 one-day old female chicks from Golden Montazah (GM.), Fayoumi (Fy.) and El- Salam (Sm.)), 400 chicks from each strain were used. Chicks of each strain were equally divided into two groups (200 chicks each) with 4replicate of 50 chicks each. The first group served as control and reared without any treatments. The second group exposed to acute heat stress (40°C for 8hrrs) one time at five-day old as procedure to early heat conditioning. Respiration rate and body temperature were measured after acute heat stress (8 chicks /strain) from treatment and another (8 chicks /strain) were measured at the same time from control. Eight blood samples were collected from each strain in treatment group after acute heat stress and another eight were collected from each strain in control group to determine blood parameters. Heated and control chickens were weighed at two, four month of age and at sexual maturity. For all replicates eggs counted, weighed daily, and average egg weight was calculated during the first six month of egg production. At 6th month of egg production three hatches were conducted, where (400 eggs/hatch) collected from each strain (200 eggs from each treatment) weekly at 50, 51 and 52 wk of age to study incubation response. At 6 month of egg production random samples of eggs representing controls and treatments (10eggs /replicate) for each strain were taken to estimate egg quality parameters. Key Words: Poultry, acute heat stress, early heat condition, egg production.

Summary in Arabic.

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