The present communication deals with concurrent infestation of lice and tick in a peafowl from Cauvery delta region of Tamil Nadu. External examination of the bird revealed presence of six lice and seven tick specimens. The ectoprasites were processed and examined under microscope. The lice and tick specimens were identified as Goniodes pavonis and nymphal stages of Haemaphysalis sp respectively. This is the first study to establish the concurrent infection of Goniodes pavonis and Haemaphysalis sp in peafowl from Cauvery delta region of Tamil Nadu and also first report of Goniodes pavonis in peafowl from India. 

One year old male Labrador Retriever dog, was presented with the history of inability to retract the penis back into preputial sheath since 24 hours after a mounting attempt. Massage therapy, application of magnesium sulfate and ice pack failed to reduce penile oedema. Topical application of oxytocin around bulbus gland is successfully reduced oedema, thereby aided in easy repositioning. Purse-string sutures were applied around the tip of the preputial sheath and post reduction therapy followed. Animal had an uneventful recovery. 

This study presents two clinical cases in Chinchilla and Himalayan rabbits, exhibiting symptoms such as alopecia, skin lesions, and ear lesions. Skin scrapings and fecal samples were collected and processed, revealing the presence of Sarcoptes scabiei mites, Psoroptes cuniculi mites, and Eimeria oocysts. Treatment involved subcutaneous administration of Ivermectin (0.2 mg/kg), accompanied by supportive and topical application of Benzyl benzoate. The rabbits displayed clinical improvement, with complete recovery observed within 30 days.

The present study was aimed to assess the seroprevalence of brucellosis in sheep of Cauvery Delta region by collecting serum samples from apparently healthy sheep and sheep with the history of abortion. Serum samples from a total of about 123 animals including 64 from apparently healthy animals, 54 from animals with previous history of abortion and 5 from aborted animals were subjected to serological tests like Rose Bengal Plate Test (RBPT), Standard Plate Agglutination Test (SPAT) and indirect Enzyme Linked Immuno-sorbent Assay (i-ELISA). Molecular identification was carried out with the aborted materials from 5 animals with Bcsp31 gene. The prevalence rate of Brucellosis was 26.01 %, 22.76 % and 41.46 % by RBPT, SPAT and i-ELISA respectively. Among the 5 aborted animals, two were found to be positive for brucellosis with all the four diagnostic tests. Among the three serological tests, the highest seroprevalence of 41.46 % was observed when i-ELISA was used. However, RBPT was considered to be cost effective and easy to test. Hence, from this study it can be concluded that periodical screening of animals with cost effective serological tests for diseases like brucellosis, which is of economic and public health significance is mandatory to prevent the disease outbreak and economic loss to thefarmers.

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease caused by pathogenic species of Leptospira interrogans. Dogs can act as maintenance host for some serovars and transmit to other animals and humans through direct and/or indirect contact with urine or contaminated water and soil. A study was conducted to identify the presence of Leptospira and assessment of seroprevalence in apparently healthy dogs in Cauvery delta region (Thanjavur, Thiruvarur and Nagapattinam districts) of Tamil Nadu. Serum (n=50) and urine (n=50) samples were collected randomly from 50 dogs with history of non vaccination to leptospirosis. Dark field microscopic (DFM) examination revealed the presence of Leptospira in 12.0 per cent of serum and 24.0 per cent of urine samples. Serological screening was done by microscopic agglutination test (MAT) using a battery of 12 Leptospira serovars (representing the serogroups of Australis, Autumnalis, Ballum, Canicola, Grippotyphosa, Hardjo, Hebdomadis, Icterohaemorrhagiae, Javanica, Pomona, Pyrogenes and Tarassovi), which revealed 56.0 per cent seropositivity to either one or several serovars, which was Icterohaemorrhagiae (46.4 per cent), Grippotyphosa (32.1 per cent), Australis (32.1 per cent), Canicola (25.0 per cent) and Autumnalis (17.9 per cent) with highly significant difference (p<0.05) in seropositivity between serovars. The predominant serovar detected in dogs in this study was Icterohaemorrhagiae followed by Grippotyphosa. It is concluded that presence of leptospirosis in dogs in Cauvery delta regions of Tamil Nadu poses the risk of transmission to animals and humans and dogs can be used as sentinel animals for identification of leptospirosis.

A biological trial was conducted to investigate the effect of bacteriophage on carcass characteristics of commercial broilers with or without bacterial challenge. Totally 180 day old Vencobb broiler chicks were randomly allotted into five dietary treatments designated as T1 to T5 with each treatment replicated thrice. T1 and T2 served as negative and positive control respectively, while birds in T3, T4 and T5 were exposed to E. coli on different days during 35 days course. Dietary treatments included T1 - basal diet, T2 - basal diet with bacteriophage in feed (50 mg/bird/ day up to 7th day and 25 mg/bird/day up to 35th day), T3 without bacteriophage, T4-bacteriophage in feed (50 mg/bird/day up to 35th day) and T5 - bacteriophage in feed (50 mg/bird/day up to 7th day and 25mg/bird/ day up to 35th day). E. coli was introduced orally in groups T3 and T4 on day 10, while T5 on day 26 (106 CFU/ bird). The bacteriophage supplementation to E. coli challenged birds had significantly increased the weights of eviscerated carcass, giblets, ready-to-cook meat; the cut-up parts like breast, back and drumstick compared to non-supplemented group. Results shed light on the potential benefits of bacteriophage as a natural alternate approach to antibiotic growth promotors in broiler production.

Resveratrol and silibinin are natural phytochemicals with considerable anticancer properties. They induce apoptosis of cancer cells by binding to various protein targets. Hence in this study, in silico molecular interaction studies were made between ligand resveratrol and ligand silibinin with NF-kB p50 subunit and p65 subunit, MMP9, caspase 3 and Bax proteins. The in silico molecular interaction revealed that silibinin and resveratrol interacted with five receptors with a high binding affinity and docking score making them novel inhibitors against various types of diseases. 

A commercially procured flow cytometrically sorted semen was reanalyzed to validate the effect of flow cytometry on structural and functional viability of spermatozoa. Flow cytometric analysis of commercially procured sex sorted frozen thawed bull semen showed the percentage of X sperms to be 95.31± 0.21 and Y sperms to be 4.69 ± 0.27, respectively. As expected sexed sperm had lower post thaw motility than the non-sexed sperm. However, no significant differences in the percentage of sperms with intact acrosome and expression of ROS were observed. Interestingly, DNA fragmentation index was statistically lower for the commercially procured sorted than for unsorted frozen thawed bull semen.

The main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different concentrations of glutathione supplementation on liquid storage of Surti buffalo bull semen. This study was performed on adult Surti buffalo bull (n = 6), and seminal ejaculates (24) were collected and evaluated for various microscopic seminal quality parameters for further processing. After preliminary evaluation, ejaculates of each collection session were mixed and divided into four equal aliquots. All the aliquots were diluted (1:10) with Tris fructose egg yolk citrate extender contained glutathione served as control (T0), whereas the other three aliquots were supplemented with 0.5, 2.0 and 5.0 mM glutathione which were grouped as Treatment-1 (T1), Treatment-2 (T2) and Treatment-3 (T3), respectively. Thereafter, the samples were stored at 4 ºC for 4 h, and various seminal parameters (individual sperm progressive motility, viability, abnormalities, plasma membrane functionality) were evaluated at equilibration. The results indicated that the mean percent values for pre-freeze sperm progressive motility, live sperm percentage and HOS responsive spermatozoa were found to be significantly higher (P<0.05) (except individual progressive motility which was non-significantly higher in Treatment-3); whereas sperm abnormalities were significantly lower (P<0.05) in semen samples treated with glutathione (Treatment-1, Treatment-2 and Treatment-3) in comparison to control. The Treatment-2 (2.0 mM glutathione), had the highest pre-freeze sperm progressive motility percentage, live sperm percentage, HOS response sperm percentage and reduced sperm abnormalities percentage compared to other three groups.

The current study was designed to evaluate the carcass and meat quality characteristics of Siruvidai chicken of Tiruvannamalai, Dharmapuri, Ariyalur and Perambalur districts of Tamil Nadu.  The carcass characteristics namely New-York dressed weight, eviscerated carcass weight, ready-to-cook weight, giblets weight, abdominal fat weight and meat: bone ratio were recorded. No significant differences observed in carcass characteristics among the districts except for pre-slaughter weight and breast yield. A significantly (p ≤ 0.05) higher breast yield was recorded from Ariyalur and Perambalur districts. The pH, water holding capacity, shear force value, tyrosine value and thio-barbituric acid (TBA) number did not show significant differences among the districts. The Siruvidai chicken of Tamil Nadu is meant for egg production and mothering ability. From this study, it is concluded that Siruvidai chicken may be utilized economically for meat production and processing.