physiological study on growth in some duck breeds

The present experimental work was carried out in the department ofphysiology, faculty of veterinary Medicine (Moshtohor), ZagazigUniversity (Benha), Egypt, during the period from April, 1999 to June,2000The aim of the present work was to compare between Muscovy andour Egyptian Native breed, Balladi, to compare between them for thefollowing: (1) Their growth rates. (2) Feed conversion efficiency. (3) Theirpuberty and maturity ages. (4) Haematological changes up to the puberty and sexual maturity ages. (5) Hormonal changes specially estrogen andtestosterone Up to the puberty and sexual maturity ages. (6) Theirbehaviours up to age of sexual maturity. (7) Histological changes in their reproductive organs up to the puberty and sexual maturity ages.The study includes 240 ducks (120 Balladi and 120 Muscovy) of oneday old healthy normal ducks. The birds were raised on clean sterilizedpens, where the stocking density didn’t exceed 10 ducklings then 5 growersin one square meter. Suitable management and prophylactic measures were taken and nearly contineous light programme was used (23 hr light and / hr dark) for ducklings, then (14 hr light and 10 hr dark) was used for growers. Feeding and watering were ad-libroiler ration containing 20 - 22% protein was used for ducklings thenration containing 16-18% protein was used for growers.