Three hundred female broilers were assigned to five groups with six replicates and were fed with either a basal diet (two control groups) or the basal diet supplemented with 800-mg vitamin C/kg (Vit ...C group), 1,200-μg Cr⁺³ from chromium (Cr) chloride/kg (Cr group) or 800-mg Vit C and 1,200-μg Cr⁺³ from Cr chloride/kg (Vit C + Cr group) from 42 to 49 days of age. Treatments did not affect performance. Transport decreased insulin level in the control and Cr groups and increased glucose/insulin (G/I) ratio in the groups. The level of insulin was higher in the Vit C + Cr group than those in the control and Cr groups after the transport. The G/I ratio was lowest in the Vit C + Cr group after the transport. The transport significantly decreased triiodothyronine (T₃) concentration in the groups except the Vit C + Cr group and only increased thyroxin (T₄) concentration in the Vit C + Cr group. The T₃/T₄ ratio was significantly decreased in the groups except the Cr group by transport. The T₃/T₄ ratio was greatest in the Vit C + Cr group before the transport. Alkaline phosphatase activity was decreased in the Vit C + Cr group due to transport. Transport decreased triglyceride levels in the groups and also decreased low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in the Vit-C-supplemented groups. Transport increased malondialdehyde concentration in the control and Vit C groups and also increased glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity in the Cr-fed groups. The GPx activity was higher in the Vit C + Cr group than those in the control and Cr groups after the transport. Ferric reducing/antioxidant power (FRAP) value was decreased in the Vit C and Cr groups by transport. Either alone or in combination, Cr increased the FRAP value before the transport. Neither transport nor treatments had significant effects on the duration of tonic immobility (TI) and number of inductions to induce TI.
There has been a considerable and continuous interest to develop equations for rapid and accurate prediction of the ME of meat and bone meal. In this study, an artificial neural network (ANN), a ...partial least squares (PLS), and a multiple linear regression (MLR) statistical method were used to predict the TMEn of meat and bone meal based on its CP, ether extract, and ash content. The accuracy of the models was calculated by R² value, MS error, mean absolute percentage error, mean absolute deviation, bias, and Theil's U. The predictive ability of an ANN was compared with a PLS and a MLR model using the same training data sets. The squared regression coefficients of prediction for the MLR, PLS, and ANN models were 0.38, 0.36, and 0.94, respectively. The results revealed that ANN produced more accurate predictions of TMEn as compared with PLS and MLR methods. Based on the results of this study, ANN could be used as a promising approach for rapid prediction of nutritive value of meat and bone meal.
•PPE cause an increase in performance parameters of broilers reared under heat stress.•PPE improve the morphology of jejunal in heat stressed broilers.•PPE improve the broiler meat quality during ...refrigeration storage.
This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary pomegranate peel extract (PPE) on growth performance, carcass characteristics, serum metabolites, immune response, jejunal morphology, and meat quality of broiler chickens reared under heat stress (HS). Two hundred 1-d-old male broiler chickens were randomly assigned to 4 treatments with 5 replicates of 10 broiler chickens each. The dietary treatments consisted of basal diets supplemented with PPE at levels of 0 (control), 250, 450, and 650 mg PPE/kg. The broiler chickens were subjected to HS (37 ± 1 °C for 7 h/d and 21 ± 1 °C for 17 h/d) from d 25 to 42. Dietary PPE supplementation linearly increased the body weight gain during the starter (P = 0.004) and overall experimental (P = 0.033) periods. Dietary supplementation of PPE quadratically decreased the feed intake during the starter period (P = 0.033). Furthermore, PPE supplementation linearly improved the feed conversion ratio during the finisher (P = 0.035) and overall experimental (P = 0.046) periods. Dietary PPE addition did not affect the relative weights of carcass, breast, thigh, abdominal fat, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, heart, gizzard, bursa of Fabricius, and spleen. Dietary supplementation with PPE linearly reduced the plasma triglycerides (P = 0.049) and alanine aminotransferase (P = 0.005) concentrations, but linearly increased the plasma concentration of high-density lipoprotein at d 24 (P = 0.044). Dietary PPE addition linearly reduced the plasma concentrations of cholesterol (P = 0.035), low-density lipoprotein (P = 0.032), alkaline phosphatase (P = 0.001), and alanine aminotransferase (P = 0.025) at d 42. The primary total anti- sheep RBC titer linearly increased with dietary PPE addition (P = 0.006). It also linearly enhanced the secondary total (P = 0.024) and Ig G (P = 0.045) anti-SRBC titers. The dietary treatments did not affect the jejunal villus height, villus width, and villus height / crypt depth ratio. Dietary PPE supplementation linearly reduced the malondialdehyde concentration in breast muscle during refrigerated storage (P < 0.05); however, linearly increased water holding capacity of breast meat during refrigerated storage (P < 0.05). It is concluded that dietary supplementation with PPE, at levels up to 650 mg/kg, improved the growth performance and plasma lipid profile of broiler chickens reared under HS. Furthermore, dietary PPE addition also preserved the quality of meat during refrigerated storage.
A total of 240 female broilers (42 days old) were randomly assigned to four groups with six replicates and fed either a basal diet (two control groups) or a basal diet supplemented with either ...1,200 μg Cr
+3
from chromium (Cr) methionine/kg (Cr group) or 1,200 μg Cr
+3
from Cr methionine plus 800 mg vitamin C (Vit C)/kg of diet (Cr + Vit C group). After 7 days on the dietary treatment, all groups except one of the controls were transported for 3 h under the summer conditions. Performance parameters were not influenced by dietary treatments. The plasma concentrations of insulin, triiodothyronine, triglyceride, and the ratio of triiodothyronine/thyroxin were decreased and the ratio of glucose/insulin was increased due to transport process. Road transportation also increased the plasma concentrations of protein, cholesterol, aspartate aminotransferase, and creatine kinase and decreased the concentration of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in the Cr + Vit C group. The pretransport concentrations of insulin and triiodothyronine were highest in the Cr + Vit C group. The concentration of phosphorous was lower in the Cr group than that in the other groups after transport. No significant effects of dietary treatments were observed on the other biochemical parameters. Transport increased malondialdehyde concentration in the control group and did not change plasma total antioxidant capacity and erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase activity. Either in combination or alone, Cr increased plasma total antioxidant capacity (before transport
P
≤ 0.05, after transport
P
= 0.07) but did not affect the concentration of malondialdehyde and activity of glutathione peroxidase. The duration of tonic immobility (TI) was similar between nontransported control chicks and transported chicks without any supplements. Pretreatment with Cr + Vit C significantly reduced the duration of TI.
SUMMARY
The objective of this study was to compare the performance of an artificial neural network (ANN) model and a 3-phase segmented linear regression model to describe the relationship between ...flock age and hatchability in broiler breeder flocks. The predictive quality of these models was tested for an external validation set of 14 wk, randomly chosen from 39 wk. The accuracy of the models was determined by the r2 value, mean square error, bias, and Theil's U-statistic parameters. The r2 values of the 3-phase segmented linear regression and ANN models were 0.4003 and 0.9984, respectively. Therefore, the ANN produced more accurate predictions of hatchability than the 3-phase segmented linear regression model. We conclude, based on the results of this study in commercial broiler breeder flocks, that hatchability is a function of flock age and that the relationship can be described by an ANN model.
An experiment was conducted to study the effect of dried tomato pomace (DTP) and a multienzyme preparatiqnftsupplementation (Rovabio Excel) on the performance and carcass quality of broiler chickens. ...A 4 x 2 factorial arrangement of treatments comprising 4 dietary DTP levels (0, 8, 16 and 24%) with and without enzyme supplementation was used. Each diet was fed to 4 replicates pens of 8 broiler chicks from 1 to 42 days posthatch as a coarse mash. The addition of DTP up to 16% to broiler diets did not significantly affect feed intake (FI), body weight gain (BWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) during starter (1 to 21 days), growing (22 to 42 days) and entire experimental (1 to 42 days) periods. Inclusion of 24% DTP into the diet significantly decreased FI at starter and entire experimental periods. Also, inclusion of 24% DTP into the diets significantly decreased BWG and increased FCR at all periods. Birds fed the diets supplemented with Rovabio Excel had significantly higher BWG during the starter and entire experimental periods. No significant effect of enzyme addition was observed on FI and FCR. The dietary treatments with or without enzyme did not significantly affect mortality. The 8% DTP-fed group had comparable carcass weight, carcass yield, yield of breast, thigh, abdominal fat, heart, liver and gizzard with those of control group. The higher levels of DTP significantly decreased carcass weight and yield, yield of breast and thigh when compared to the control group. Enzyme supplementation significantly increased carcass weight and yield of abdominal fat. No significant interactions between the DTP and enzyme were observed for performance parameters and carcass characteristics. These results demonstrate that supplementation of DTP up to 8% to broiler diets had no significant adverse effects on performance parameters and carcass characteristics. The enzyme had a significant effect on BWG, carcass weight and yield of abdominal fat.
Trainee research collaboratives (TRCs) have pioneered high quality, prospective 'snap-shot' surgical cohort studies in the UK. Outcomes After Kidney injury in Surgery (OAKS) was the first TRC cohort ...study to attempt to collect one-year follow-up data. The aims of this study were to evaluate one-year follow-up and data completion rates, and to identify factors associated with improved follow-up rates.
In this multicentre study, patients undergoing major gastrointestinal surgery were prospectively identified and followed up at one-year following surgery for six clinical outcomes. The primary outcome for this report was the follow-up rate for mortality at 1 year. The secondary outcome was the data completeness rate in those patients who were followed-up. An electronic survey was disseminated to investigators to identify strategies associated with improved follow-up.
Of the 173 centres that collected baseline data, 126 centres registered to participate in one-year follow-up. Overall 62.3% (3482/5585) of patients were followed-up at 1 year; in centres registered to collect one-year outcomes, the follow-up rate was 82.6% (3482/4213). There were no differences in sex, comorbidity, operative urgency, or 7-day postoperative AKI rate between patients who were lost to follow-up and those who were successfully followed-up. In centres registered to collect one-year follow-up outcomes, overall data completeness was 83.1%, with 57.9% (73/126) of centres having ≥95% data completeness. Factors associated with increased likelihood of achieving ≥95% data completeness were total number of patients to be followed-up (77.4% in centres with < 15 patients, 59.0% with 15-29 patients, 51.4% with 30-59 patients, and 36.8% with > 60 patients, p = 0.030), and central versus local storage of patient identifiers (72.5% vs 48.0%, respectively, p = 0.006).
TRC methodology can be used to follow-up patients identified in prospective cohort studies at one-year. Follow-up rates are maximized by central storage of patient identifiers.
Background
Acute illness, existing co‐morbidities and surgical stress response can all contribute to postoperative acute kidney injury (AKI) in patients undergoing major gastrointestinal surgery. The ...aim of this study was prospectively to develop a pragmatic prognostic model to stratify patients according to risk of developing AKI after major gastrointestinal surgery.
Methods
This prospective multicentre cohort study included consecutive adults undergoing elective or emergency gastrointestinal resection, liver resection or stoma reversal in 2‐week blocks over a continuous 3‐month period. The primary outcome was the rate of AKI within 7 days of surgery. Bootstrap stability was used to select clinically plausible risk factors into the model. Internal model validation was carried out by bootstrap validation.
Results
A total of 4544 patients were included across 173 centres in the UK and Ireland. The overall rate of AKI was 14·2 per cent (646 of 4544) and the 30‐day mortality rate was 1·8 per cent (84 of 4544). Stage 1 AKI was significantly associated with 30‐day mortality (unadjusted odds ratio 7·61, 95 per cent c.i. 4·49 to 12·90; P < 0·001), with increasing odds of death with each AKI stage. Six variables were selected for inclusion in the prognostic model: age, sex, ASA grade, preoperative estimated glomerular filtration rate, planned open surgery and preoperative use of either an angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitor or an angiotensin receptor blocker. Internal validation demonstrated good model discrimination (c‐statistic 0·65).
Discussion
Following major gastrointestinal surgery, AKI occurred in one in seven patients. This preoperative prognostic model identified patients at high risk of postoperative AKI. Validation in an independent data set is required to ensure generalizability.
AKI following major gastrointestinal surgery is common, occurring in 1 in 7 patients, and is strongly associated with increased risk of peri‐operative death. A pre‐operative prognostic model has been developed to identify patients at high risk of post‐operative AKI.
Needs external validation
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