The objective of this study was to identify the causative agents of hepatitis observed in broiler chickens at processing. Livers of chickens from 16 broiler farms in Saskatchewan with gross lesions of hepatitis were collected at processing. In addition to routine bacterial isolation and histopathological examination, serologic studies for infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) and Chicken anaemia virus (CAV), calculation of the ratio of the weight of the bursa of Fabricius (BF) to body weight (BBW), and histopathological examination of the BF were done. Of the 264 livers with gross lesions, 83% had multifocal to coalescing necrotizing hepatitis, 16% had perihepatitis, and 1% had hemorrhages. No definitive causative microorganisms were isolated from the hepatic lesions; however, no significant bacterial isolations were made. Bursal atrophy, low BBW ratio, and high titer of antibody against IBDV each correlated with the rate of total condemnations (P = 0.0188, P = 0.0001, and P = 0.0073, respectively). Nucleotide sequencing of IBDV isolated from the BF identified the variant strains Delaware-E and 586. Condemnation because of hepatic lesions was correlated with titer of antibody against IBDV and BBW (P = 0.016 and P = 0.027). The results of this study demonstrate that hepatic lesions in Saskatchewan chickens are not currently caused by a primary bacterial pathogen but are associated with indicators of immunosuppression that is likely due to variant IBDV.

A primary fibroblast cells from embryos of brown quail Coturnixypsilophora has been established and partially characterized. The cells were maintained in Modified Eagle’s medium (MEM) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum. The cells were able to grow at temperatures between 35°C and 38°C with optimum temperature of 37°C. The growth rate of primary quail fibroblast cells increased as the FBS proportion increased from 5% to 20% at 37°C with optimum growth at the concentrations of 10% or 15% FBS. The cells showed no microbial contamination throughout the period of experiment and the total chromosome number of a diploid cell was 78, according to karyotyping and chromosome analysis. The susceptibility of quail primary cells for avian viruses was investigated in this study after inoculation with ND and IB viruses. Both viruses showed a satisfactory CPE development and the infectivity were assayed by virus titration (TCID50). This suggests that the quail primary cells can be used for isolation of various avian viruses with further steps of infectivity confirmation in the future.