Modelling feather growth in broilers

• Grant number: 19/01853-3
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: August 01, 2019
• End date: July 31, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Animal Husbandry - Animal Nutrition and Feeding
• Principal Investigator: Nilva Kazue Sakomura
• Grantee: Nilva Kazue Sakomura
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias (FCAV). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Jaboticabal. Jaboticabal , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Euclides Braga Malheiros ; Jacob van Milgen ; Kênia Cardoso Bícego ; Marcos Macari ; Robert Mervyn Gous
• Associated scholarship(s): 20/08087-1 - Feather growth modeling in broilers, BP.TT

Abstract

The current proposal aims to understand the dynamism with which feathers grow in broilers of different strains and sexes. An initial study will be conducted in order to determine the behaviour of feather weight, length, chemical composition and amino acid pattern according to age. In so doing, male and female Cobb 500MV and Ross 308 AP (AP95) broilers will have continuously measured the weight, chemical composition and amino acid pattern of feathers of the following regions of body: neck, thoracic back, lumbar back, tail, breast, legs, and wings. These data will be fitted to Gompertz function in order to determine the growth parameters of feathers. Subsequently, another assay will be conducted with the purpose of determining daily feather losses of broilers of the strains and sexes aforementioned. The outcomes form this study will allow establishing the molt periods in broilers, which will in turn allow to fit the Gompertz function to data from different generation of feathers during growth period. The study will also allow determining the requirements of broilers for amino acids for maintenance purposes. The outcomes from both studies will be used to develop factorial models to predict poultry requirements for amino acids and energy. A third assay will be conducted in order to standardize a methodology which allow estimating broiler feather coverage using thermography. Lumbar back temperature measured with thermic camera will be correlated to density of feathers of the referred area to develop an equation to predict broiler feather coverage. A fourth and last assay will be conducted in order to evaluate the effects of levels and different sources of methionine on broiler feather coverage using thermography. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

LEME, B. B.; SAKOMURA, N. K.; VARGAS, L.; NASCIMENTO, C. C. N.; ANTAYHUA, F. A. P.; DORIGAM, J. C.; MACARI, M.; GOUS, R. M.. Composition of feathers and pulp of two broiler genotypes. BRITISH POULTRY SCIENCE, v. N/A, p. 5-pg., 2022-03-09. (19/01853-3)