Naturally Occurring Egg Drop Syndrome Infection in Turkeys

A decrease in the egg quality, production, fertility and hatchability without serious clinical signs of illness was recorded in turkey fl ocks in Croatia at the beginning of 2002. It was assumed that the egg drop syndrome virus might be one of the etiological agents responsible for the abnormalities in the egg production. The systematic serological monitoring, using a haemagglutination inhibition test, showed that the antibodies to the egg drop syndrome virus existed in 94.4 and 55.1% of the sera analysed in 2002 and 2003, respectively. The haemagglutination inhibition titres ranged from 16 to 128. The sera samples were randomly collected from 11 - to 46-week-old hens from the affected fl ocks. The serological evidence of the egg drop syndrome virus infection was confirmed by detection of the presence of the virus genome in the turkey sera by the polymerase chain reaction. Vaccination of the 18- and 25-week-old turkey hens against the egg drop syndrome virus started in March 2003. After this period, the presence of antibodies to the egg drop syndrome virus (the haemagglutination inhibition titres between 16 and 256) was found in 96.7% of the analysed sera, while the egg production reached normal or higher values for the Nicholas hybrid line of turkeys

Effects of cimetidine on broiler fattening and on stress-induced gizzard erosion in chicken

The work describes the effects of cimetidine on stress-induced gizzard erosions (Experiment A) and the influence of the long-term application (42 days) of the same drug on weight gain and feed consumption during broiler fattening (Experiment B). For Experiment A, 60 male, three-day-old chicks were divided into two groups: C (n = 30) - control chicks treated with 0.5 ml saline; CIM (n = 30) - chicks treated with cimetidine in a dose of 5 mg/kg body weight (b. w.) in-tragastrically. All chicks were stressed using a modified water-immersion stress method according to which the chicks, after 24 h of feed deprivation, were immersed in tap water (17 °C) for a few seconds. Under chloroform anaesthesia ten chicks from each group were killed 1, 2 and 3 h after the stressing. The morphometric analysis of gizzard erosion (GE) and histopathological examinations of gizzards were performed for each chick. In Experiment B, 32 one-day-old broilers of both sexes were used. The control group was untreated (n = 16) while the CIM group (n = 16) was fed the same diet supplemented with 10 mg of cimetidine per kilogram of feed throughout the fattening period (42 days). The results of Experiment A showed decreased mean length of the GE in the cimetidine-treated birds as compared with the GE lesions of the controls. In Experiment B, the treated chicks had reduced liveweight (1835.1 g), carcass weight (1474.6 g) and increased feed consumption (2115 g of feed per kilogram of weight gain) compared to the controls in which the same parameters were 1898.5 g, 1574.2 g and 1797 g, respectively. The results show that while stress-induced GE of chicks can be medicated pharmacologically, long-term application of the same substance impairs the results of fattening

Effects of two infectious bursal disease vaccine virus strains on hepatic microsomal enzyme activities in chickens

The influence of two infectious bursal disease vaccines on the activities of hepatic microsomal enzymes aniline hydroxylase, ethylmorphine N-demethylase, NADPH-cytochrome c reductase, aryl sulphotransferase and p-nitrophenol UDP-glucuronyltransferase was investigated in chickens. The vaccines contained attenuated Winterfield 2512 and VMG-91 strains, respectively. The activities of enzymes were determined on postvaccination days 0, 2, 5 and 7. At the same time, post-mitochondrial supernatant, cytosolic and microsomal pellet protein concentrations were determined. As expected. the antibody titres against infectious bursal disease virus in the serum were increased in both tested groups in relation to each administered vaccine. Using RT-PCR, the presence of the VP2 gene fragment of virus in the liver of chicken was demonstrated 4 and 6 h after vaccination. The results of this study suggest that the two commercial vaccines modulate the activities of five enzymes tested, and that the two attenuated vaccines applied triggered induction and/or inhibition of phases I and II of biotransformation enzyme activities