A white woman stories to decolonise (herself).

This bricolage of writings is the result of a middle-class, middle-aged white privileged woman who jettisoned (most of) her motherly and housewifely duties to explore her social conscience in a scholarly but creative way. I call it my passion PhD as I meander through the cultural abyss between black and white Australia for the sheer love of learning, luxuriating in research, trying to see what I had never been shown, and unsee what I had been shown. I wonder how can I be complicit and complacent in a society that privileges me over others because of the colour of my skin? I combine a creative practice of storytelling to question the status quo that is the dominant culture, the mercurial methodology of poetics, and the autoethnographic eye that guides a reflexive process of personal decolonisation. I bring to the research a burgeoning awareness of colonised minds, bodies, spirits and lenses and am confident my fresh eyes, curiosity and commitment to unlearn, unsee and unsettle can be deftly deployed to challenge and disrupt the prejudices and perceptions of my fellow white Australians. This is not a problem-solving piece of research, although I am exploring the nature of a problem. The problem.  which is often erroneously cast as the `Aboriginal Problem' when it is a Whiteness Problem, is the core of my research. But I am not focusing just on First Nations peoples and their legacy of colonisation; rather, I examine our shared legacy, turning the gaze back on white Australia, holding up a mirror, to ask with all sincerity: Who is the problem? Where is the problem? What have we done? Why weren't we told? Did you really just say that? The space I am writing into is the denial that W. E. H. Stanner called `The Great Australian Silence', `the cult of forgetfulness practiced on a national scale' (1968) and it remains disappointingly relevant today. I follow those historians who have sought to open white Australian ears and hearts to our violent history and the true legacy of colonisation, including Bernard Smith, Henry Reynolds, Ian Clark, Minoru Hokari, Lyndall Ryan and Inga Clendinnen, to name a few. I respectfully listen to and follow the lead of First Nations scholars from other colonised nations who have demanded from the academy the right and space to create research and methodologies in their own cultural shape, foregrounding their own ways and knowing and being, such as Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Jo-Ann Archibald, Michael Yellow Bird, Richard Frankland, Natalie Harkin and Aileen Moreton-Robinson. I submit my whiteness to scrutiny to `undo', or unravel, this identity to which I have been so accustomed and that has afforded me so much. In this task, I see myself through the gaze of critical race scholars like George Yancy, Robin DiAngelo, Shannon Sullivan and poet Claudia Rankine and emerge chastened. I lean on the scholarship of my creative contemporaries who write from deep in their hearts and bellies to advocate for a society that is better than this, that we are better than this, for Treaty, for self-determination, for Change the Date, for a First Nations voice to Parliament. I am inspired by, and add my voice to the works of Stephen Muecke, Deborah Bird Rose, Anne Elvey, Katrina Schlunke and Michael Farrell. What you have in your hands are six chapbooks, each painted in a hue from Boon wurrung Country, filled with stories about my peering into and trying to work out ways to bridge the cultural abyss to discover how I might write about white relationships with black Australia in a way that engages white Australia to listen

Effect of Dietary Linseed on Egg Quality of Laying Quail

Abstract: This experiment was performed to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with linseed on egg quality of laying quail. A total of 320 Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) 9-wk old were allocated to 4 treatment groups with 4 replicates containing 20 quail each. Birds were fed commercial diet containing 0% (C), 2% (T1), 4% (T2) or 6% (T3) linseed. Birds received water and diet ad libitum during the total period of experiment. Egg quality characteristics were monitored over 3 consecutive 21-d periods. Egg quality criteria involved in this experiment were egg weight, yolk diameter, yolk height, yolk weight, albumen height, albumen weight, shell weight, shell thickness, Haugh unit, albumen percentage, yolk percentage and shell percentage. Results revealed that supplementing diet of laying quail with linseed resulted in significant increase in total means of egg weight, yolk diameter, albumen height, shell thickness, Haugh unit, albumen percentage and albumen weight. Total means of shell weight and yolk percentage were not significantly (p>0.05) different from quails consuming 0, 2, 4 or 6% linseed; However, total mean of shell percentage was reduced (p<0.05) in laying quails fed linseed when compared to control group. In conclusion, Feeding laying quails with different levels of linseed (2%, 4%, or 6%) caused significant improvement as regards most of egg quality parameters included in this experiment. Therefore, adding linseed to the ration could be used as a good tool for improving productive performance of Japanese quail

Effects of parenteral gibberellic acid and dietary supplementaion of vitamin D3 on egg quality and physiological characteristics in aged laying hens

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of parenteral gibberellic acid (GA3) and/or vitamin D3 supplementation in diet on egg quality and blood physiological characteristics in aged laying hens. A total of 270 Lohmann Brown Classic laying hens aging 73-week were randomly assigned to equal three treatment groups (T1, T2 and T3) with equal 3 replicas in each group. The birds of group T1 (control group) were injected subcutaneously (SC) with sesame oil at 0.2 mL/kg body weight. The birds of group T2 were given with GA3 at 400 µg/kg b.wt., SC, whereas group T3 had diet containing vitamin D3 at 500 IU/kg feed. Relative weight of albumen and egg shell, Haugh unit, shell thickness, serum glucose, serum calcium, serum phosphorous, serum estradiol, and bone calcium absorption were significantly increased in the birds of group T2 and T3. On the other hand, relative weight of yolk, yolk cholesterol, and serum cholesterol were significantly decreased in group T2 and T3 as compared to group T1. However, serum protein and albumen were unaffected in the treatments. In conclusion, the parenteral GA3 and vitamin D3 supplementation in diet could improve egg quality traits and serum blood biochemical perperties in agend laying hens