Date of Graduation

5-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Biological Sciences

Advisor/Mentor

Alrubaye, Adnan

Committee Member/Reader

Walker, James

Committee Member/Second Reader

Acuff, Jennifer

Committee Member/Third Reader

Plavcan, Joseph M.

Abstract

A common concern in commercial industries profiting from broiler chickens is their inability to yield a completely healthy flock. Bacterial Chondronecrosis with Osteomyelitis poses a threat to these companies by impairing the birds' proximal and distal tibial and femoral heads. In 2000, roughly 17.3% of broiler chickens were affected by Bacterial Chondronecrosis with Osteomyelitis which caused a substantial economic loss in the industry (McNammee et al., 2000). BCO cannot be tied to a particular bacterial species; this experiment focuses on evaluating the efficacy of certain commercial feed additives while determining the bacterial species causing BCO in this set of the flock by process of induction of the disease, manipulation, and maintenance of flock lifestyle, and eventual necropsy of the chickens. The farm setup where this experiment was conducted consisted of 26 pens and 1560 male chicks. Of the 26 pens, 2 of the pens were wire floored to create physical stress on the lower extremities, while the other 24 pens were litter floored. The pens were arranged in two rows of 13 and were 5*10 feet squared. The initial two pens of each row, pens 1 and 14, were the wire floored pens. Each pen began with 60 chicks and was eventually culled down to 50 chicks per pen on day 14. The pens received standard feed starter in crumbles from days 1-34 and then were switched to a finisher given through pellets from days 35-56. The six different treatment groups were distributed over the 26 pens and consisted of varying amounts of Nuproxa feed additives. Pens 1 and 14 were designated under treatment one and were the pens used to induce lameness through wire flooring and a standard diet without additives. A further detailed description of the treatments can be found in Table 1. Beginning on day 22, the birds were weighed and diagnosed as lameness began to appear. On day 56, the remaining birds underwent an extensive necropsy on the last day of the trial. They were weighed, their tibia and femurs were evaluated, samples of their lesions on their tibia and femur were taken, and Inflammasome and FITC-D analysis was completed.

Keywords

Broiler; Chickens; Feed; Bacteria; Lameness; wire flooring

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