New technique speeds maturity in chickens
COLLEGE PARK, Md -
A relatuffijfcy-
surgical operation oft - the
brain of baby cockerels
appears to speed up the
onset of sexual development
in the birds and promises to
have an' impact on the
poultry industry, according
to a University of Maryland
Agricultural Experiment
Station poultry science
professor
For reasons that are still
unclear, the surgery
procedure causes
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enlargement of the testes to
about times-, their
normal size by the - ninth
week after hatching At that
point, the young chickens
are capable of producing
sperm, a development that
usually takes place about 20
to 24 weeks of age
“We’re decreasing the
generation time,” says
Wayne Kuenzel, the poultry
science professor who, with
a graduate student, Heidi
Mass, made the discovery
Presently, scientists seeking
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to breed traits such as in
creased size and egg-laying
ability in chickens are
restricted by the length of
time it takes the birds to
reach maturity If it is
possible to reduce the time it
takes the chickens to reach
maturity, then the desired
traits will show up faster.
Kuenzel has earned a
Fulbnght Fellowship to
pursue further study at the
poultry science center 'in
Edinburgh, Scotland, a
federally funded institution
Rt 2, Newviile, PA
717-776-7533
devoted to study of the
nutrition and physiology of
fowl There, he will spend
one year studying appetite
control in fowl by examining
brain function.
Kuenzel and Ms Mass
made the discovery while
studying appetite in
chickens, specificially
“what do we do to the
chicken’s brain to increase
appetite and get them to
market in less than seven
weeks 7 Kuenzel said
He was also trying to
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suppress the appetite in
those chickens selected to be
breeding stock in order to
keep the birds from
becoming too large and
obese. Size itself has
become a major poultry
industry problem, Kuenzel
says, because the young
roosters bred to have large,
meaty breasts are having
difficulty “mounting” hens
during the breeding process
During the appetite
studies, the two researchers
literally needed a map in
order to investigate the
brain to determine how it
could be manipulated to
alter appetite To make the
map, they had to remove the
brain from the chicken and
freeze it, make very thin
slices of the brain,
photograph those and then
make drawings from the
photos. The drawings, taken
together, form a virtual
“Atlas” of the chicken’s
brain
Because there are no pam
receptors in the bram-either
of chickens or humans-there
is minimal pain to the
chicken during surgery. The
operation is done by making
lateral cuts in the
hypothalmus, an area of the
brain that controls appetite
Ms Mass performed all of
the surgical operations on
the birds, which show no ill
effects from the operation
Ms Mass made the in
cisions in the medial
hypothalmus with some
expectation that she would
observe an increased ap
petite by manipulating that
structure In rats, for
example, if the medial
hypothalmus is cut, then the
growth rate increases.
In the case of chickens,
however, “we did not get a
significantly greater growth
rate,” Kuenzel said “In
stead, body growth was
suppressed ”
However, the large red
comb that normally tops the
heads of mature roosters
developed “much earlier
than normal,” Kuenzel said
“Yes, it was a ‘red flag’ for
us It indicated that perhaps
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