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Novel Technology in Poultry Production and Nutrition: Role in Disease...
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Novel Technology in Poultry Production and Nutrition: Role in Disease Prevention, Performance and Welfare Improvement and Sustainability

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Poultry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 4186

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Vasilios Tsiouris

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Unit of Avian Medicine, Clinic of Farm Animals, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, School of Health Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54627 Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: broiler; layer; breeder; health; welfare; feed technology; management technology; poultry pathogens
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Georgios C. Papadopoulos

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Animal Husbandry, School of Veterinary Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: broiler; layer; breeder; health; welfare; feed technology; management technology; poultry pathogens
Dr. Ilias Giannenas

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Nutrition, School of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: animal nutrition; health; antioxidants; feed additives; aromatic and medicinal plants; alternative feedstuffs with bioactive compounds
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Paschalis Fortomaris

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Animal Husbandry, School of Veterinary Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: broiler; layer; breeder; health; welfare; feed technology; management technology; poultry pathogens

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Rapid global population growth and rising incomes in developing countries have led to increased demand for protein, which is one of the most expensive and limiting feed ingredients. The poultry industry can play a key role in alleviating poverty as well as food scarcity as it can provide high-quality protein and nutrients for human consumption through meat and eggs. However, poultry protein must be produced in a way that promotes the health and welfare of the birds while being ethical and environmentally friendly. The poultry industry faces an ongoing challenge to apply novel technologies and develop management strategies to optimize chicken performance while minimizing food safety concerns. For example, the shift away from antibiotic use in poultry has led industry and academia to find alternatives to AGPs to improve bird health, welfare and performance as well as prevent and control enteric pathogens. In addition, increased consumer demand for "organic" poultry products is further forcing this industry to avoid the use of AGPs and to implement more environmentally and poultry-friendly management practices. Considering the shift away from the use of antibiotics in poultry feed and the impact of zoonotic agents on poultry, public and environmental health, a “One Health” approach should be adopted. Taking all the above-mentioned factors into account, a wide range of novel, alternative, environmentally friendly technologies in poultry production and nutrition should be developed. All these technologies in poultry production and nutrition bring new challenges and demand a holistic approach through novel feed strategies in order to minimize the impact on poultry health and welfare as well as to guarantee food safety and security for a growing human population. The purpose of this Special Issue is to provide current knowledge on novel technology in poultry production and nutrition with the potential for disease prevention, performance and welfare improvement, as well as to improve sustainability in poultry.

Dr. Vasilios Tsiouris
Dr. Georgios C. Papadopoulos
Dr. Ilias Giannenas
Prof. Dr. Paschalis Fortomaris
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • broiler
  • layer
  • breeder
  • health
  • welfare
  • feed technology
  • management technology
  • poultry pathogens

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 20069 KiB  
Article
DFCCNet: A Dense Flock of Chickens Counting Network Based on Density Map Regression
by Jinze Lv, Jinfeng Wang, Chaoda Peng and Qiong Huang
Animals 2023, 13(23), 3729; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13233729 - 01 Dec 2023
Viewed by 804
Abstract
With the development of artificial intelligence, automatically and accurately counting chickens has become a reality. However, insufficient lighting, irregular sizes, and dense flocks make this a challenging task. The existing methods cannot perform accurate and stable counting. In this article, a dense flock [...] Read more.
With the development of artificial intelligence, automatically and accurately counting chickens has become a reality. However, insufficient lighting, irregular sizes, and dense flocks make this a challenging task. The existing methods cannot perform accurate and stable counting. In this article, a dense flock of chickens counting network (DFCCNet) is proposed based on density map regression, where features from different levels are merged using feature fusion to obtain more information for distinguishing chickens from the background, resulting in more stable counting results. Multi-scaling is used to detect and count chickens at various scales, which can improve the counting accuracy and ensure stable performance for chickens of different sizes. Feature convolution kernels are adopted to convolve feature maps, which can extract more accurate target information, reduce the impact of occlusion, and achieve more reliable and precise results. A dataset of dense flocks of chickens (namely Dense-Chicken) has been collected and constructed, which contains 600 images of 99,916 chickens, with labeled points and boxes. It can be accessed by researchers as benchmark data. The proposed method was compared with some state-of-the-art algorithms, to validate its effectiveness. With its robustness being verified by counting in three kinds of density situations, with the mean absolute error being 4.26, 9.85, and 19.17, respectively, and a speed of 16.15 FPS. DFCCNet provides an automatic and fast approach to counting chickens in a dense farming environment. It can be easily embedded into handheld devices for application in agricultural engineering. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Technology in Poultry Production and Nutrition: Role in Disease Prevention, Performance and Welfare Improvement and Sustainability)
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14 pages, 3204 KiB  
Article
In Ovo Feeding Techniques of Green Nanoparticles of Silver and Probiotics: Evaluation of Performance, Physiological, and Microbiological Responses of Hatched One-Day-Old Broiler Chicks
by Mervat M. N. Ahmed, Zienhom S. H. Ismail, Ibrahim Elwardany, Jayant Lohakare and Ahmed A. A. Abdel-Wareth
Animals 2023, 13(23), 3725; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13233725 - 01 Dec 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1936
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the in ovo feeding of green nanoparticles of silver (Nano-Ag), probiotics, and their combination on hatchability, carcass criteria and internal organs, biochemical parameters, and cecal microbial populations in hatched one-day-old chicks. On [...] Read more.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the in ovo feeding of green nanoparticles of silver (Nano-Ag), probiotics, and their combination on hatchability, carcass criteria and internal organs, biochemical parameters, and cecal microbial populations in hatched one-day-old chicks. On day 18 of incubation, 250 live embryo eggs were weighed and randomly assigned to one of five treatment groups: a negative control group, a positive control group consisting of chicks injected with 0.2 mL physiological saline, a group consisting of chicks injected with 0.2 mL Nano-Ag, a group consisting of chicks injected with 0.2 mL probiotics (Bifidobacterium spp.), and a group consisting of chicks injected with 0.2 mL combination of Nano-Ag and probiotics (1:1). The results showed that the in ovo injection of Nano-Ag or probiotics, alone or in combination, had no effect on hatchability, live body weight, or internal organs but improved (p < 0.05) chick carcass yield compared to the control groups. Furthermore, in ovo feeding decreased (p < 0.05) serum levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, urea, creatinine, alanine aminotransferase, and aspartate aminotransferase, as well as cecal E. coli, but increased Bifidobacterium spp. when compared to the control groups. Based on these findings, in ovo injections of green Nano-Ag and probiotics, either alone or in combination, have the potential to improve chick health and balance the microbial populations in hatched one-day-old chicks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Technology in Poultry Production and Nutrition: Role in Disease Prevention, Performance and Welfare Improvement and Sustainability)
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11 pages, 673 KiB  
Article
Dietary Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) Waste Inhibits Experimentally Induced Eimeria tenella Challenge in Japanese Quails Model
by Jamal Abdul Nasir, Naila Chand, Shabana Naz, Ibrahim A. Alhidary, Rifat U. Khan, Sajida Batool, Noha T. Zelai, Gianluca Pugliese, Vincenzo Tufarelli and Caterina Losacco
Animals 2023, 13(21), 3421; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13213421 - 04 Nov 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 910
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of dietary 3% oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) waste in enhancing the anticoccidial effects in broilers challenged with Eimeria tenella infection. The experiment involved a total of 600 Japanese quails, raised from [...] Read more.
The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of dietary 3% oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) waste in enhancing the anticoccidial effects in broilers challenged with Eimeria tenella infection. The experiment involved a total of 600 Japanese quails, raised from one to thirty-five days of age, which were divided into four treatment groups. These included a negative control group that received a basal diet (BD) without any anticoccidial or antibiotic supplementation in the non-challenged birds (negative control, NC); a positive control (PC) group consisting of NC birds challenged with E. tenella; a group that received the BD with an anticoccidial drug (standard); and a group that received the BD supplemented with 3% waste from oyster mushrooms (3% Pleurotus ostreatus). The results showed that the feed intake, body weight gain, and feed efficiency were significantly lower in the PC (p < 0.05). However, the growth traits were similar in the standard and 3% Pleurotus ostreatus-treated groups. Similarly, there was no difference (p < 0.05) in the mortality rate, oocyst count in the feces, and lesion score between the standard and 3% Pleurotus ostreatus groups. Based on intestinal histology evaluation, the villi height and width were significantly higher in the standard and 3% Pleurotus ostreatus-treated groups compared to those of the PC (p < 0.01). In conclusion, it was found that 3% Pleurotus ostreatus effectively mitigated the low growth rate of Japanese quails induced by coccidial infection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Technology in Poultry Production and Nutrition: Role in Disease Prevention, Performance and Welfare Improvement and Sustainability)
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