These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.
Pubmed for Handhelds
PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS
Search MEDLINE/PubMed
Title: Effects of ambient temperature on growth performance and carcass traits of male growing White Pekin ducks. Author: Sun PX, Shen ZJ, Tang J, Huang W, Hou SS, Xie M. Journal: Br Poult Sci; 2019 Oct; 60(5):513-516. PubMed ID: 31220935. Abstract: 1. An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of ambient temperature on growth performance and carcass traits in male growing Pekin ducks from 14 to 42 d of age in order to establish their optimal temperature requirements. 2. A total of 216 14 d old male White Pekin ducks were allocated randomly to six environmentally controlled chambers with ambient temperature set at 20°C, 22°C, 24°C, 26°C, 28°C, and 30°C from 14 to 42 d of age, respectively. 3. As ambient temperature increased from 20°C to 30°C, the body weight and weight gain decreased linearly or quadratically (P < 0.05) and was accompanied by linearly decreasing feed intake (P < 0.05). According to broken-line regression, the upper critical level of ambient temperature during the growing period for body weight, weight gain, and feed conversion ratio were 27.4°C, 27.4°C, and 26.0°C, respectively. 4. The weight of breast meat, leg meat, and abdominal fat decreased linearly or quadratically as ambient temperature increased and declined to a minimum when the temperature increased to 30°C (P < 0.05). The percentage of breast meat and abdominal fat showed a linear or quadratic decreasing response to increasing temperature, but leg meat percentage increased as temperature increased and reached maximum at 30°C (P < 0.05). According to broken-line regression, the upper critical ambient temperatures during the growing period for breast meat weight and percentage were 25.5°C and 25.6°C, respectively. 5. It was concluded that both growth performance and breast meat of growing ducks were sensitive to increasing ambient temperature and this should be kept below the upper critical temperature during the growing period in order to optimise growth performance and carcass traits at market age.[Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]