The present study sought to evaluate mRNA expression profiles in the cultured dermal fibroblasts of Tharparkar (zebu) and Karan-Fries (zebu, Tharparkar × taurine, Holstein Friesian) cattle in response to heat stress. Bioinformatics’ analysis identified temperature-regulated biological processes and pathways. Biological processes overrepresented among the earliest genes induced by temperature stress include regulation of stress responses, protein repair, metabolism, protein transport, cell division, and apoptosis. The present microarray platform contains 51,338 synthesized oligonucleotide probes corresponding to at least 36,713 unigenes. A total of 11,183 and 8126 transcripts were differentially expressed with a fold change of ≥ 2 in Tharparkar and Karan-Fries cattle, respectively. Randomly selected real-time validation showed 83.33% correlation with microarray data. Functional annotation and pathway study of the differentially expressed transcripts or genes (DEGs) reveal that upregulated genes significantly (P < 0.05) affect protein processing and NOD-like receptor pathways (NLRs), while downregulated genes were significantly (P < 0.05) found to be associated with cell cycle, metabolism, and protein transport. Gene expression changes include activation of heat shock factors (HSFs), increased expression of heat shock proteins (HSPs), and apoptosis, while decreasing protein synthesis and another metabolism. These findings provide insights into the underlying mechanism of the physiology of heat stress in Tharparkar and Karan-Fries cattle. Understanding the biology and mechanisms of heat stress is critical to developing approaches to ameliorate current production issues for improving animal performance and agriculture economics in tropical climatic conditions. In conclusion, the present study indicates that heat stress differentially affects the expression of the significant number of genes associated with stress response, metabolism, apoptosis, and protein transport in dermal fibroblasts of Tharparkar and Karan-Fries cattle.

The aim of the present study was to estimate genetic parameters of juvenile body measurements in indigenous Uttara chickens. Body measurement records at birth of 1907 chicks sired by 25 breeder cocks and 200 breeder hens were used in heritability calculation. Genetic parameters were estimated for Uttara chicken juvenile body weights at hatching, and at 4 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks and 20 weeks of age. Heritability of all body measurements was estimated by paternal half-sib method. Heritability estimates can be used to improve body measurements of indigenous Uttara hens. The sex dimorphism effects were estimated at 2 weeks of age and were present at later ages. These results indicate that mass selection method based on the individual phenotype of the chickens at different ages can provide genetic improvement in the flock. Thus, early body measurements of the Uttara chickens could be used for prediction of the size of the adult Uttara.

A study was conducted to determine the effects of pre-incubation egg parameters on post-incubation parameters in Uttara breeder hens. A total of 2,890 hatching eggs were classified according to three egg weight groups viz. small (44-52 g); medium (53-57 g) and large (58-68 g). Results indicated that large-sized eggs produced chicks with higher hatch-weight than medium and small-sized eggs. However, no differences were observed for fertility and hatchability rates but significant differences were found for chick quality and chick weight. It was therefore concluded from the results of the present study that sorting of eggs by weight prior to incubation might be advantageous in producing uniform size hatchlings to meet specific market demands with focus on breeding for obtaining maximum number of saleable chicks.

The present study was carried out on 120 randomly selected broiler farms in the foothills of the Kumaon region, Uttarakhand. The socio-economic profile of the farmers was evaluated based on flock size and education status into different categories. Farmers were interviewed personally using a well-prepared questionnaire to analyze the effect of socio-economic factors and to identify various problems faced in broiler farming and suggestions given by the farmers to overcome those problems. The majority of the farmers were young, male, non-vegetarian, untrained, and marginal. The Hindus preferred chicken meat and had no taboos in adopting broiler farming. More than half of the farmers practiced broiler farming as a subsidiary occupation and had large flock size. Flock size, landholding, and experience had no significant effect on communication sources for adopting broiler farming except education. High cost of feed, day-old chicks and more fluctuation in price followed by less organized marketing system were major problems at the production and marketing level, respectively. Most of the farmers suggested that feed, day-old chicks should be provided at subsidized rates, and a well-organized marketing system should be available in broiler farming.