Influence of breeder age on biometrics organ and morphology of the mucosa of the small intestine of chicks hatching

Abstract

The objective of the conducted experiment was the evaluation of effect of multiple age breeders on the organs biometry and the intestinal morphometry of chicks at hatching. There were incubated 200 eggs provided from Ross 308 breeders at the ages of 32, 40, 48, 56 and 64 weeks. At hatching, 20 chicks of each breeder age were individually weighted and sacrificed in order to evaluate breast, cloacal bursa, yolk sack and small intestine weight, besides the small intestine length. The duodenum portion was collected in order to measure the villus height and the crypt depth. There were a positive linear effect of the breeder age (p<0,05) on the live weight, absolute and relative yolk sack weight, cloacal bursa absolute weight and breast absolute and relative weight. For the absolute and relative small intestine weight it was observed a quadratic effect of the breeder age (p<0,05), in which the best intestine development was in chicks from breeders between 40 and 50 weeks of age. The chick weight has a positive correlation with the weight of the yolk sac, cloacal bursa and breast (p<0,05). For the villus and crypt it was obtained a significant effect of the breeders age (p<0,05) on the crypt depth, whose linear behavior was decreasing and inverse to the breeders age. The villus:crypt relation showed a linear increasing behavior (p<0,05) according to the breeders age. It’s concluded that the breeder age has influence on the organ biometry and on the small intestine mucosal morphometry of chicks at hatching.

Keywords

• Villus height; Organ weights; Broiler; Yolk sac