Mycotoxic effect of Medicinal Plants Against Helminthosporium sativum and Aspergillus niger

hirty-nine extracts from 10 medicinal plants were tested against Helminthosporium sativum and Aspergillus niger for their fungitoxicity in vitro. Methanol leaves extracts of Lawsonia inermis, Withania somnifera, Datura metel, Datura stramonium and stem bark extract of Bauhinia racemosa significantly inhibited mycelia growth of both target fungi. Some extracts exhibited greater fungitoxicity than that of synthetic fungicide Dithane M-45

HAEMATOLOGICAL AND PLASMA PROTEIN PROFILE IN FAYOUMI HEN SUFFERING FROM ASCITES

A 9 months old Fayumi layer, having 2.5 kg body weight with distended abdomen was examined. On physical examination, the hen was found anaemic, dyspnoeic and recumbent with pulpy abdomen distended with fluid. Upon aspiration, about 800 ml of straw-coloured fluid was collected which contained proteinitious casts but no fibrin. Haematological examination revealed that RBC counts, haematocrit and WBC counts were 3.5 x 1012/L, 25% and 50 x 109/L, respectively. Differential leukocytic counts revealed that heterophils, lymphocytes, monocytes and eosinophils were 50, 26, 18 and 6%, respectively, without any basophils. The concentrations of plasma proteins and fibrinogen were 7.9 g/dL and 312 mg/dL, respectively. The hen was given supportive therapy along with antibiotics and flusher

EFFECTS OF ASCORBIC ACID AND ACETYLSALICYLIC ACID SUPPLEMENTATION ON THE PERFORMANCE OF BROILER CHICKS EXPOSED TO HEAT STRESS

A total of 100, day-old broiler chicks were randomly divided into 5 equal groups and kept under elevated temperature (93-97oF) to see the effect of ascorbic acid and acetylsalicylic acid on the feed conversion ratio (FCR), immune status and ratio of weight of bursa, thymus and spleen to body weight. Heat stress increased the FCR but decreased the immune response and ratio of bursa, thymus and spleen to body weight of the birds. Ascorbic acid and acetylsalicylic acid supplementation during heat stress had beneficial effects on FCR, immune status and ratio of bursa, thymus and spleen to body weight. Grossly, bursa, thymus and spleen of heat stressed birds were atrophied but in ascorbic acid and acetylsalicylic acid supplemented birds these organs were not atrophied. No specific histopathological changes were observed in all groups

Chlorinated Pesticide Residue Status in Tomato, Potato and Carrot

A study was carried out to identify the bioaccumulation and the ascertain level of chlorinated pesticide residues in some vegetables collected from market baskets of New market, Dhaka, Bangladesh namely potato, tomato and carrot. The samples were randomly collected from different shops and analyzed by capillary column of Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometry (GCMS) with Electron Impact Ionization (EI) method for the detection of chlorinated pesticide. The results of the study revealed that collected samples of potato, tomato, red amaranth and spinach were contaminated with some chlorinated substances. But Indian spinach and carrot were free of contamination with organochlorine pesticide

ESTIMATION OF BREEDING VALUES OF SAHIWAL CATTLE USING TEST DAY MILK YIELDS

Estimated breeding values of test-day (TD) and 305-day milk yield were calculated to compare ranking of animals on the basis of two information sources under an animal model. Two statistical models were used to analyze 780 first lactation (305-day) and monthly milk yield records. The first model was an individual animal model to analyze lactation milk yield with period-season of calving as fixed effect, while the second model was a repeatability model where monthly milk yield records were analyzed using period-season of calving as fixed effect and animals’ additive genetic effect and permanent environmental effect as random factors. In this model, the age at calving, ratio of days in milk to 305-day (as linear and quadratic components) and their reciprocal logs were used as covariables. Ranking of animals for estimated breeding values from the two models was compared. The rank correlations were 0.927 and 0.923 for sires and cows, respectively. Largest rank shift measured in sires and cows showed that ranking of sire was affected less than that of cows. Phenotypic and genetic correlations did not show any clear pattern due to limited number of observations. Higher values of rank correlations suggested that TD milk yields could be used instead of 305-day lactation yields for genetic evaluation of sires and cows. Detailed studies involving larger data sets were however, suggested for validation of results

PREVALENCE OF TRICHOMONIASIS IN DOMESTIC AND WILD PIGEONS AND ITS EFFECTS ON HEMATOLOGICAL PARAMETERS

The present study was conducted to determine the prevalence of trichomoniasis and its effect on some blood parameters in pigeons. A total of 100 samples from the pigeons (50 wild and 50 domestic) were collected during the months of March and April 2005. Higher prevalence (P<0.05) was recorded in wild pigeons (60%) than in domestic pigeon (26%). The overall prevalence recorded was 43%, being non significantly higher in April (56%) than in March (30%). In infected pigeons, there was significant (P<0.05) decrease in hemoglobin concentration number of monocytes packed cell volume, body weight, than healthy birds. Likewise, the values of total leukocyte count, lymphocytes and eosinophils were higher significantly (P<0.05) in infected pigeons than the healthy ones. While, no significant difference was observed for heterophils count when infected and healthy birds were compared. It was concluded that trichomonad infection is quite common in wild, as well as in domestic, pigeons under the prevailing cage system

GENETIC CONTROL OF TEST-DAY MILK YIELD IN SAHIWAL CATTLE

Heritabilities of test-day (TD) and 305-day milk yield were estimated using performance records of 780 first lactation Sahiwal cows, following two models. In the first model, estimated 305-day lactation milk yields were analyzed through an individual animal model with period-season of calving as fixed effect and additive genetic effect as random factor. The second model was a repeatability model where monthly milk yield records were analyzed using period-season of calving as fixed effect and additive genetic effect and permanent environmental effect as random factors. The age at calving, ratio of days in milk to 305-day (as linear and quadratic components) and their reciprocal logs were used as covariables. The heritability estimates for 305-day and TD milk yields were 0.082 and 0.024, respectively. Heritability estimates of individual TDs ranged from 0 to 0.274. The relative proportion of permanent environment variance to total variance was 0.498. Heritability of individual test-day milk yield was highest in the mid-lactation (TD6-TD8). Lower genetic control of test day and lactation milk yield in the present study needs validation using larger data sets with accurate pedigree recording

KARYOLOGY OF KARI SHEEP

Kari sheep is an important genetic resource of Pakistan endemic to Chitral in North Western Frontier Province of Pakistan. The objective of the present study was to establish karyotype of this breed. Blood samples from five representative specimens of Kari sheep, including one ram and four ewes, were examined for chromosomal spread from metaphase of the lymphocyte culture. Animals for this purpose were brought to Peshawar, as traveling to nearest laboratory with 12 hours was difficult. The homologous chromosomes were arranged in pairs in their descending order and size. Diploid number of chromosomes in Kari sheep were 54 (27 pairs), including 26 autosome pairs and one sex-chromosome pair. The chromosome array in ewes was similar to ram, except for the sex chromosome. Both the homologous sex chromosomes (XX) in ewes were large but similar. The results confirm that Kari falls within the category of domestic sheep (Ovis aries)

EFFECT OF REDUCING SPERM NUMBERS PER INSEMINATION DOSE ON FERTILITY OF CRYOPRESERVED BUFFALO BULL SEMEN

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of reducing sperm numbers per insemination dose on fertility of cryopreserved buffalo bull semen. For this purpose, semen was collected at weekly intervals from a Nili-Ravi buffalo bull (Bubalus bubalis) using an artificial vagina in two batches. The ejaculates were split-sampled and diluted at 37°C with tris-citric acid extender having 15x106 or 30x106 motile spermatozoa/0.5 ml. After dilution, the semen was cooled to 4C, equilibrated for 4 hours, packaged in 0.5 ml straws and frozen in programmable cell freezer. Fertility test based on 75-days first service pregnancy rate was determined under field conditions. A total of 500 buffaloes were inseminated with frozen semen and out of these 431 could be followed, 209 for semen straws packaged with 15x106 spermatozoa/straw and 222 for doses filled with 30x106 spermatozoa/straw. The inseminations were performed in two batches and each batch was spread over a period of three months. The fertility rate for sperm concentration of 15x106 spermatozoa/0.5 ml vs. 30x106 spermatozoa/0.5 ml (49.28 vs. 56.75%) was similar (P>0.05). The fertility rates were also similar (P>0.05) in the first and second batch of inseminations performed with 15x106 or 30x106 spermatozoa/0.5 ml straw of cryopreserved semen. In conclusion, reduction of sperm number from 30x106 to 15x106 spermatozoa/0.5 ml dose of insemination did not affect fertility of cryopreserved buffalo bull semen

AnimalWeb: A Large-Scale Hierarchical Dataset of Annotated Animal Faces

Being heavily reliant on animals, it is our ethical obligation to improve their well-being by understanding their needs. Several studies show that animal needs are often expressed through their faces. Though remarkable progress has been made towards the automatic understanding of human faces, this has regrettably not been the case with animal faces. There exists significant room and appropriate need to develop automatic systems capable of interpreting animal faces. Among many transformative impacts, such a technology will foster better and cheaper animal healthcare, and further advance animal psychology understanding. We believe the underlying research progress is mainly obstructed by the lack of an adequately annotated dataset of animal faces, covering a wide spectrum of animal species. To this end, we introduce a large-scale, hierarchical annotated dataset of animal faces, featuring 21.9K faces from 334 diverse species and 21 animal orders across biological taxonomy. These faces are captured `in-the-wild' conditions and are consistently annotated with 9 landmarks on key facial features. The proposed dataset is structured and scalable by design; its development underwent four systematic stages involving rigorous, manual annotation effort of over 6K man-hours. We benchmark it for face alignment using the existing art under novel problem settings. Results showcase its challenging nature, unique attributes and present definite prospects for novel, adaptive, and generalized face-oriented CV algorithms. We further benchmark the dataset for face detection and fine-grained recognition tasks, to demonstrate multi-task applications and room for improvement. Experiments indicate that this dataset will push the algorithmic advancements across many related CV tasks and encourage the development of novel systems for animal facial behaviour monitoring. We will make the dataset publicly available