Abdel-Rahman, Mootaz A.M.

Darwish, Madeha H.A.

Mahmoud, Usama T.

Mosaad, Gamal M.M.

English

Usama T. Mahmoud

Mootaz A.M. Abdel-Rahman

Madeha H.A. Darwish

Gamal M.M. Mosaad

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The Effect of Separate-Sex Rearing of Slaughter Quail on  Serum Corticosterone Level

Journal of Advanced Veterinary Research (University Assiut, Egypt)

Japanese quails are used widely in biomedical andagricultural research as well as for the productionof meat and eggs. Separate-sex rearing is com-monly employed in the poultry industry because ofdifferences in growth rates and nutritional require-ments of male and female chickens (Mine et al.,2002). The  separate-sex  rearing  of growing birdsallows achieving  a better  homogeneity with re-spect to live weight and high production traits(Mincheva et al., 2012).Gender of quails play a role on fattening per-formance and body weight of quail. Shrivastava etal. (1995) reported that the birds grown as separatehad a higher live body weight at 5 weeks of agecompared to those grown as mixed. Kul et al.(2006) suggested that rearing male and femalequails separately can be recommended to the pro-ducers for a higher live body weight, body weightgain, and carcass weight.Corticosteroid concentrations in blood havebeen used as a measure of environmental stress inbirds (Edens and Siegel, 1976; Beuving et al.,1989). Corticosterone is of particular interest be-cause it is the primary hormone facilitating stressresponses in birds, it is functionally important dur-ing maturation and ovulation of ovarian follicles(Etches and Cunningham, 1976). Mature males ex-hibited higher corticosteroid levels in response toACTH than mature females (Sheila  and Cheryl,1987)This study was undertaken to determine the ef-fect of growing males and female Japanese quailsseparate or mixed together on serum corticosteronelevel. In order to asses whether this system had astressful effect on the bird health or not. This study was carried out from October 2008to December 2008 at the Faculty of VeterinaryMedicine, Assiut University, Egypt. Forty fivequail chicks at age of twenty one days were dividedinto 3 groups according to sex: Females only (15birds), males only (15 birds) and mixed group (7males and 8 females). Twenty blood sample (5 from each group exceptin the mixed one where 10 blood samples weretaken, 5 from females and 5 from males). Bloodsamples were collected in test tubes without anti-coagulant to determine the corticosterone levels.The tubes were kept at the room temperature for 30minutes then stored at a refrigerator for 60-90 min-utes and then centrifuged at 3000 r.p.m for 10 min-utes and the separated serum was transferred toanother Epindoorf`s tube using micropipette. Theserum samples were kept at –20 ºC until analysesfor its corticosterone levels using AssayMax corti-costerone ELISA kits (obtained from ASSAYPRO,catalog number EC3001-1) following the proce-dure outlined by manufacturer. The results were ex-pressed as the mean ± SE. All data were analyzedusing one way analysis of variances (ANOVA) fol-lowed by LSD TEST using SPSS 11.0 statisticalsoftware (spss, Inc, Chicago, IL,2001).The previously mentioned results revealed that,males group had a significantly (p<0.05) higherlevel of serum corticosterone than females group(19.48 and 13.16 ng/ml, respectively) or mixed one(12.09 and 12.99 ng/ml for females and males, re-spectively). The results disagreed with Remage etal. (2003) who reported that, group housed birdswhich were separated from their pair mates andhoused in a same sex group exhibited a non-signif-icant increase in plasma Corticosterone in response*Corresponding author: Usama T. MahmoudE-mail address: usamakomsan5@gmail.comJournal of Advanced Veterinary ResearchVolume 2 (2012) 206-207The Effect of Separate-Sex Rearing of Slaughter Quail on Serum Corticosterone LevelUsama T. Mahmoud1*, Mootaz A.M. Abdel-Rahman1, Madeha H.A. Darwish1, GamalM.M. Mosaad21Department of Animal Hygiene, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Assiut University 71526, Assiut, Egypt2Department of Animal and Clinical Nutrition, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Assiut University 71526, Assiut, Egypt(Recieved 4 June 2012/ Accepted 10 Juli 2012)Short CommunicationsISSN: 2090-6277/2090-6269, www.advancedvetresearch.comto separation. The results of the present experiments could beexplained as a social frustration that has beenshown to elicit hypothalamic-pituitary axis (HPA)activation in mammals (Romero et al., 1995; Lyonset al., 2000). It has been established that subordi-nate male's rats have a reduced serum testosteroneand higher corticosterone relative to dominant(Hardy et al., 2002). It Could be conlcuded that,when quail used for studying the stress the exam-ined group of birds must include both genders. Thelowest serum corticosterone level was for the groupwhich contains both sexes (males and females).Therefore, it is advisable to raise both sexes in thesame group. The effect of sex separation as stressfactor needs further workReferencesBeuving, G., Jones, R.B., Blokhus, H.J., 1989. A drenocorti-cal and heterophil / lymphocyte responses to challengein hens showing short or long tonic immobility reac-tions. British Poultry Science 30, 175-184.Edens, F.W., Siegel, H.S., 1976. Modification of corticos-terone and glucose responses by sympatholytic agentsin young chickens during acute heat exposure. PoultryScience 55, 1704-1712.Etches, R.J.,Cunningham, F.J., 1976. Effect of pregnenolone,progesterone, deoxycorticosterone or costicosteroneon time of ovulation and ovipostion in hen. BritishPoultry Science 17, 637-642.Hardy, M.P., Sottas, C.M., Ge, R.S., McKittrick, C.R.,Tamashiro, K.L., McEwen, B.S., Haider, S.G.,Markham, C.M., Blanchard, R.J., Blanchard, D.C.,Sakai, R.R., 2002 . Trends of reproductive hormonesin male rats during psychosocial stress: role of gluco-corticoid metabolism in behavioral dominance. Biol-ogy of Reproduction 67, 1750-1755.Kul, S., Ibrahim, S., Ozge, Y., 2006. Effect of separate andmixed rearing according to sex on fattening perform-ance and carcass characteristics in Japanese quails(Coturnix cotu rnix Japonica ). Arch. Tierz., Dummer-storf 49, 607-614.Romero, L.M., Levine, S., Sapolsky, R.M., 1995. Adrenocor-ticotropin secretagog release-Stimulation by frustra-tion and paradoxically by reward presentation. BrainResearch 676, 151–156.Lyons, D.M., Fong, K.D., Schrieken, N., Levine, S., 2000.Frustrative nonreward and pituitary-adrenal activityin squirrel monkeys. Physiology and Behavior 71,559–563.Mincheva, N., Lalev, M., Oblakova, M., Hristakieva, P.,.Ivanova, I., 2012. Investigation on the frequency ofalleles at the k locus and their effect on the growth oftwo lines of Plymouth Rock chickens. ArchivaZootechnica 15, 69-75.Mine, O.M., Mochakana, M.E., Mpapho, T., Motlhanka,D.T.M., Kgwatalala, P., 2002.  Application of a sexidentification technique in juvenile ostriches and itspotential application in Botswana. South African Jour-nal of Animal Science 32, 160- 163. Remage, L.H., Regan, E.A., Romeroc, L.M., 2003. Behav-ioral and adrenocortical responses to mate separationand reunion in the zebra finch. Hormones and Behav-ior 43, 108-114.Sheila, K.S., Cheryl, F.N., 1978. Effects of Age, Sex, andAscorbic Acid Ingestion on Chicken Plasma Corticos-terone Levels. Poultry Science 57 , 527-533. Shrivastava, S.K., Ahuja, S.D., Bandyopadhyay, U.K., Singh,R.P., 1995. Influence of rearing mixed and separatesexes on growth performance and carcass yield ofJapanese quail. Indian Journal of Poultry Science. 30,158-160.SPSS, 2001. Statistical software package for the socialsecinces. SPSS Inc. United States of America. Citedby http://www.spss.com.207U. T. Mahmoud et al. / Journal of Advanced Veterinary Research 2 (2012) 206-207Table 1. Effect of sex separation on serum corticosteronelevel of quail chicksFig. 1. Effect of sex separation on serum corticosterone levelof quail chicks .ab Means with different superscripts in the same column differ sig-nificantly (p<0.05).

The Effect of Separate-Sex Rearing of Slaughter Quail on Serum Corticosterone Level

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Journal of Advanced Veterinary Research (University Assiut, Egypt)