Ukrainian Black Sea Region Agrarian Science

Abstract

Over the past decades, egg poultry farming has undergone a certain specificity, concentration and intensification, which contributed to radical changes in the main production processes, as well as to the use of high-tech cage equipment for keeping laying hens, which to one degree or another affects the condition of hens and the quality of edible eggs. Chicken health is an important part of normal functioning and high productivity of chickens. For the health of chickens, the normal and full functioning of the immune system is necessary, which is influenced by various technological factors, one of which is the size of the grouping of chickens in cages. The purpose of the article is to investigate the non-specific reactivity of chickens under the influence of the size of the grouping with the same density of laying hens in cages that are similar in design. Egg-laying hens of the industrial flock “Hy-Line W-36” were used as the object of research. Experiments with experimental animals were conducted in accordance with the rules of the European Convention on the Protection of Vertebrate Animals. Under the conditions of a modern complex for the production of edible eggs, 4 groups of chickens were formed, each of which was kept in a separate analogue poultry house. The non-specific reactivity of the hens’ organism under the influence of the size of the grouping with the same density of laying hens in cages analogous to the construction was studied. It was found that with a decrease in the size of the grouping of chickens, there is a shift of the leukocyte formula to the left, a preference for non-specific protective cells, which occurs as a result of a functional increase in the proliferative activity of the bone marrow and is expressed in an increase in the number of heterophils and an increase in their activity in the macrophage-macrophage immune response system

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