We developed a simple yet effective, plug-and-play combination compatible with any model, featuring Mixed Local Channel Attention (MLCA), Light Efficient Detection (LED), and Weighted Intersection over Union (WIoU) modules. Poultry houses rely on manual checks to find low-yield hens, a subjective and labor-intensive task. We used an inspection robot to collect real-world data from 270 three-tier cages of 'Jing' hens. Integrating these modules enhanced the capture of small and overlapping targets like hen heads and eggs, boosting processing speed. We also custom-designed a Counting-in-Different-Cages (CDC) algorithm to solve counting difficulties caused by the tiered cages. The improved model increased hen detection precision by 4.7%, recall by 5.4%, and processing speed by 20.7 frames per second. In actual counting tasks, the algorithm achieved 93.1% accuracy for hens and 97.5% for eggs, with a minimal error of 0.26 hens and 0.06 eggs per cage. The entire system identified low-yield cages with 93.3% accuracy, proving it is highly capable of automated performance monitoring in commercial poultry farms.

This study evaluated the effects of oligomeric ultrafine-nano hydrogen water (OUHW) on production performance, egg quality, egg nutrient deposition, systemic metabolism, intestinal barrier function, and reproductive status in late-laying hens. Unlike conventional hydrogen-rich water, which primarily delivers molecular hydrogen dissolved in water, OUHW integrates oligomeric water with ultrafine-nano-sized hydrogen bubbles, providing a distinct physicochemical form of hydrogen-water intervention. A total of 288 healthy 67-week-old Jingfen No. 8 laying hens were assigned to 2 treatments with 6 independent replicates per treatment (24 hens per replicate) and provided with either tap water or OUHW for 11 weeks. Compared with the control, OUHW reduced the feed conversion ratio and the rates of manure-spotting while increasing the laying rate, qualified egg rate, and total egg number during weeks 5–8 (p < 0.05). These productive and egg quality improvements were phase-specific effects observed in the late laying stage during the 11-week trial. At week 4, OUHW significantly increased egg weight (p < 0.05). At week 8, OUHW also improved eggshell compressive elastic deformation, eggshell thickness, albumen height, and Haugh unit (p < 0.05). At week 6, eggs from OUHW-treated hens had higher concentrations of glutamate, glycine, alanine, C18:0, C18:1n9c, C20:4n6, and C22:6n3 (p < 0.05). Serum metabolomics showed that 25 differential metabolites from the OUHW treatment group were predominantly enriched in glycerophospholipid, sphingolipid, branched-chain amino acid, histidine, and tryptophan metabolism. In the cecum, OUHW decreased p-cresol and increased isovaleric acid and acetic acid (p < 0.05). Notably, the overall community structures of the cecal and oviductal microbiota exhibited no significant treatment-related alterations, indicating limited structural changes in the microbial communities in response to the OUHW intervention. OUHW also reduced interleukin-2 and tumor necrosis factor-α, increased interleukin-10 in the jejunum and oviductal isthmus (p < 0.05), and upregulated the mRNA expression of ovarian steroidogenic acute regulatory protein and intestinal Occludin, Claudin-1, and Mucin-2 (p < 0.05). These findings indicate that OUHW improved laying performance, egg quality, and egg nutrient deposition, possibly through modulation of the metabolism, intestinal barrier function, ovarian function, and oviductal inflammation.

The identification of a chicken’s sex is a massive task in the poultry industry. To solve the problems of traditional artificial observation in determining sex, such as time-consuming and laborious, a sex identification method of chicken embryos based on blood vessel images and deep learning was preliminarily investigated. In this study, we designed an image acquisition platform to capture clear blood vessel images with a black background. 19,748 images of 3024 Jingfen No. 6 breeding eggs were collected from days 3 to 5 of incubation in Beijing Huadu Yukou Poultry Industry. Sixteen thousand seven hundred sixty-one images were filtered via color sexing in 1-day-old chicks and constructed the dataset of this study. A sex identification model was proposed based on an improved YOLOv7 deep learning algorithm. An attention mechanism CBAM was introduced for YOLOv7 to improve the accuracy of sex identification of chicken eggs; the BiFPN feature fusion was used in the neck network of YOLOv7 to fuse the low-level and high-level features efficiently; and α-CIOU was used as the bounding box loss function to accelerate regression prediction and improve the positioning accuracy of the bounding box of the model. Results showed that the mean average precision (mAP) of 88.79% was achieved by modeling with the blood vessel data on day 4 of incubation of chicken eggs, with the male and female reaching 87.91% and 89.67%. Compared with the original YOLOv7 network, the mAP of the improved model was increased by 3.46%. The comparison of target detection model results showed that the mAP of our method was 32.49%, 17.17%, and 5.96% higher than that of SSD, Faster R-CNN, and YOLOv5, respectively. The average image processing time was 0.023 s. Our study indicates that using blood vessel images and deep learning has great potential applications in the sex identification of chicken embryos.

笼养模式下鸡/蛋自动识别与计数在低产能鸡判别及鸡舍智能化管理方面具有重要作用,针对鸡舍内光线不均、鸡只与笼之间遮挡及鸡蛋粘连等因素导致自动计数困难的问题,本研究以笼养鸡只与鸡蛋为研究对象,基于YOLO v7-tiny提出一种轻量型网络YOLO v7-tiny-DO用于鸡只与鸡蛋识别,并设计自动化分笼计数方法.首先,采用JRWT1412 型无畸变相机与巡检设备搭建自动化数据采集平台,获取2146 幅笼养鸡只图像用于构建数据集.然后,在YOLO v7-tiny网络基础上应用指数线性单元(Exponential linear unit,ELU)激活函数减少模型训练时间;将高效层聚合网络(Efficient layer aggregation network,ELAN)中的常规卷积替换为深度卷积减少模型参数量,并在其基础上添加深度过参数化组件(深度卷积)构建深度过参数化深度卷积层(Depthwise over-parameterized depthwise convolutional layer,DO-DConv),以提取目标深层特征;同时在特征融合模块引入坐标注意力机制(Coordinate attention mechanism,CoordAtt),提升模型对目标空间位置信息的感知能力.试验结果表明,YOLO v7-tiny-DO识别鸡只和鸡蛋的平均精确率(Average precision,AP)分别为96.9%与99.3%,与YOLO v7-tiny相比,鸡只与鸡蛋的AP分别提高3.2、1.4 个百分点;改进后模型内存占用量为5.6 MB,比原模型减小6.1 MB,适合部署于算力相对有限的巡检机器人;YOLO v7-tiny-DO在局部遮挡、运动模糊和鸡蛋粘连情况下均能实现高精度识别与定位,在光线昏暗情况下识别结果优于其他模型,具有较强的鲁棒性.最后,将本文算法部署到 NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier边缘计算设备,在实际场景下选取30 个鸡笼开展计数测试,持续3d.结果表明,3 个测试批次鸡只与鸡蛋的计数平均准确率均值分别为96.7%和96.3%,每笼平均绝对误差均值分别为 0.13 只鸡和 0.09 枚鸡蛋,可为规模化养殖场智能化管理提供参考.

The genetic improvement of economic traits suggests that chicken is an excellent model for exploring the genetic changes and molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypic diversity and artificial selection. Here, the sequencing data including 477 samples from 25 breeds worldwide were used to reveal the genomic patterns of chicken domestication. We analyzed 7.4 Tb clean data with 14.8× per individual to identify 23,504,766 SNPs, 3,289,782 InDels, and 27,027 SVs. The diversity analysis indicates that high-intensity artificial selection would accelerate population differentiation. We also found that the human-driven traits are controlled by polygenes and major genes, such as the primary candidates SOX5 and IGF1 for body size, and NEDD4 for sperm storage capacity. Our findings provide an important reference for understanding how genomic patterns shape phenotypes in livestock.

In birds, the sperm storage tubules (SST) are dispersed in uterovaginal junction (UVJ) and highly correlated with differential capacity of sperm storage (SS) in and among species with unspecified mechanisms. Here, the SS duration of 252 egg layer breeders was evaluated in 5 rounds with 3 phenotypic traits to screen high- and low-SS individuals, respectively, followed with transcriptome of UVJ tissues and metabolome of serum (high-SS vs. low-SS) to decipher the candidate genes and biochemical markers correlated with differential SS capacity. Histological characterization suggested slightly higher density of SST in UVJ (high-SS vs. low-SS). Transcriptome analyses identified 596 differentially expressed genes (336 upregulated vs. 260 downregulated), which were mainly enriched in gene ontology terms of homeostasis, steroid and lipid metabolism and hormone activity, and 12 significant pathways (P < 0.05) represented by calcium, steroid, and lipid metabolism. Immunohistochemical staining of GNAQ, ST6GAL1, ADFP, and PCNA showed similar distribution in UVJ tissues between 2 groups. Several candidates (HSD11B2, DIO2, AQP3, GNAQ, NANS, ST6GAL1) combined with 4 (11β-prostaglandin F2α, prostaglandin B1, 7α-hydroxytestosterone, and N-acetylneuraminic acid) of 40 differential metabolites enriched in serum metabolome were considered as regulators and biomarkers of SS duration in egg layer breeders. The integrated transcriptome and metabolome analyses of chicken breeder hens will provide novel insights for exploration and improvement of differential SS capacity in birds.

Avian sperm storage tubules (SSTs), which are located in the uterovaginal junction (UVJ) of the oviduct, are primary sperm storage sites after mating or artificial insemination. The mechanism underlying reduced sperm storage efficiency of SSTs which is highly correlated with decreased fertility rates in aged laying breeders remains largely unclear. Here, comparative transcriptomic analysis between the aged and young White Leghorn hens (120 vs. 30 wk) was applied to identify gene expression changes of UVJs containing SSTs. Bioinformatics analysis revealed 567 upregulated and 1998 downregulated differentially expressed genes. Gene ontology analysis was highly enriched in terms of immune system, cell adhesion, and cytoskeleton proteins. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis revealed 5 significant (P < 0.05) pathways including inositol phosphate and glycerophospholipid metabolism. β-Galactosidase staining of chicken UVJ sections suggested increased cell senescence via aging. Oil Red O staining and immunohistochemistry detection of ADFP both confirmed distribution of lipid droplets in SST cells with increased intensity in aged breeders. The lipid synthesis and metabolism-related genes represented by TFAP2 and PLD1 were differentially expressed in aged laying breeders. The upregulation of IL15 and downregulation of a large number of immune-related genes in aged breeders indicate altered immune homeostasis in UVJs and SSTs. The increased accumulation of lipids, and altered immunity homeostasis, combined with other factors (TJP1, MYL9, AFDN, and RPL13, etc.) are potentially dominant effectors to decrease the sperm storage efficiency and egg fertility in aged laying breeders.

具有自主知识产权的"京粉2号"蛋鸡配套系,填补了国产白羽粉壳高产蛋鸡品种的空白.为了客观评估国产蛋鸡良种推广所带来的经济效益、对产业发展的贡献,本研究对"京粉2号"蛋鸡配套系2013-2017年的推广效益、2018-2020年预期效益进行了研究分析.结果表明:"京粉2号"蛋鸡配套系的推广,每年能为社会增加3.51亿元的经济效益,科研投资年纯收益率达到4.47,经济效益和科研投资回报率显著,有力支撑了我国农业农村发展和蛋鸡良种体系建设.

一 鸡群日常巡视遵循原则 1 严格遵守防疫要求 遵循先从小日龄栋舍到大日龄栋舍、从健康鸡舍到非健康鸡舍,进入鸡舍时踩踏消毒盆并更换专用防疫服,落实—级防疫区防疫制度的原则. 2 鸡群巡视位置选择 选择巡视位置时要考虑鸡舍的对称性,以四列五走道蛋鸡舍为例,鸡群巡视时需最少巡视三条走道,即1、2、3走道或3、4、5走道,以此可以初步判断鸡舍整体概况.

为研究不同舍温对“京红1号”父母代种公鸡繁殖性能的影响,试验选取210日龄“京红1号”父母代种公鸡1 040只,随机分为1组、2组、3组和4组,置于同一场区四个相同蛋种鸡舍饲养,每组260只.分别设定舍温27、28、29、30℃时开启水帘降温,记录各组试验种公鸡体重、采精量、精子活力和母鸡受精率.结果表明:各组每天的平均舍温均可控制在水帘开启温度范围内,其中4组试验种公鸡体重显著低于1组、2组和3组(P＜0.05),采精量显著低于1组、2组(P＜0.05),精子活力、母鸡受精率差异不显著(P＞0.05);2组、3组和4组各项指标差异均不显著(P＞0.05).建议标准化蛋种鸡舍夏季水帘开启温度设置为29℃.

试验旨在通过冬季正压孵化厅进风口温度对比研究,确定在不影响孵化指标的前提下,降低环境控制耗能的进风口温度参数.试验将入孵种蛋“京粉1号”C段(41～50周龄)商品代合格种蛋680400个,设置1个对照组、2个试验组.对照组进风口温度设定为26℃(冬季进风口温度日常生产设定值),试验组1、试验组2进风口温度分别设定为24℃、22℃.结果显示:对照组与两个试验组受精蛋孵化率、受精蛋健母雏率、蛋雏比等孵化指标差异均不显著(P＞0.05);对照组每月耗煤量及燃煤费用显著高于试验组1及试验组2(P＜0.05).结果表明,冬季将正压孵化厅进风口温度由26℃调整为22℃时,对孵化指标的影响不大,可显著减少耗煤量及燃煤费用.

为了研究育成鸡(18周龄)不同体重水平对"京粉2号"蛋种鸡生长和生产性能的影响,本试验按照18周龄末的鸡群平均体重,选取大于平均体重110％、介于平均体重105％～110％、100％～105％、95％～100％、90％～95％以及小于平均体重90％的鸡各96只,在相同的环境条件和管理方式下饲养,分析各组鸡群20～59周龄的体重变化、产蛋性能的各项指标.试验结果表明,在不超过平均体重110％的范围内,育成鸡体重越大,则开产体重越大,开产日龄与达产蛋高峰越早、高峰维持时间越长、总产蛋数与种蛋合格率越高.育成鸡体重超过平均体重110％的鸡群,产蛋期死亡率较高."京粉2号"蛋种鸡18周龄末平均体重达到1488 g,鸡群产蛋期的综合生产性能最优,可以获得最大的经济效益.

选取21日龄"京红1号"父母代蛋种鸡28512只,随机分为试验组与对照组,每组4个重复,每个重复3564只.试验组采用"顿服"饲喂方式(即待鸡群采食干净后,空槽30 min,再进行下一次饲喂工作),对照组采用常规饲喂方式(即固定每间隔3h饲喂1次,按照传统的料槽中时时有料的饲喂措施进行饲喂),记录2组鸡群的日耗料、体重、均匀度、相应产蛋日龄、产蛋率.试验结果表明,与常规饲喂方式相比,采用"顿服"饲喂方式有提高育雏育成鸡群日耗料、体重、均匀度、相应开产日龄的趋势,"顿服"饲喂方式可显著提高鸡群产蛋阶段的产蛋率水平.说明"顿服"饲喂方式有益于后备鸡群生长性能和后期生产性能的发挥,建议后备鸡群采用"顿服"饲喂方式.

雏鸡运输过程中,需要控制好运输温度、湿度、时间,并为雏鸡提供足够的氧气,保证雏鸡质量.人工控制雏鸡运输过程中车厢内温度,会导致车厢内温度忽高忽低,运输过程中不同时间段温差较大,使雏鸡受到较强的冷热应激,影响雏鸡质量.尤其是冬季外界温度较低的情况下,车厢内外温差大,人工控制进、排风时,车厢内温度波动较为明显.另外,在开启进风口、排风口时需停车进行,司机劳动强度增大,送鸡时间延长.此外,运输过程中长期湿度过低会导致雏鸡脱水,雏鸡出现瘦小无力、干爪等现象.

试验选取165、175和185日龄的“京红1号”商品代种蛋各3024个,自48～53 g蛋重范围内,以每间隔1克为一组分别划分为1、2、3、4、5组,53 g以上为第6组,每组504个,共计9 072个,各组同时入孵.入孵前和孵化第18天分别称取各组蛋重,计算各组种蛋孵化18d的失重率;出雏后记录各组的有效受精率、孵化率、健母率、蛋雏比和出雏鸡体重;饲养期间,记录各组种蛋所孵化雏鸡各周龄末的平均体重与每天的死淘只数,对试验结果进行双因素方差分析.结果表明:出雏体重与入孵蛋重呈线性相关,出雏体重为入孵蛋重量的68％～69％;蛋重和日龄两因素均对种蛋孵化和雏鸡饲养产生显著影响(P＜0.05),日龄因素直接影响了种蛋有效受精率、孵化率、健母率、蛋雏比等孵化指标和1周雏鸡体重的饲养指标,蛋重因素影响雏鸡出雏重、1～4周龄的体重与1～10日龄的死淘率等饲养指标.为了最大限度地提高种蛋利用率,建议需要运输时间在4h以内的客户,“京红1号”入孵种蛋标准可界定为种鸡于175日龄后所产的51g以上种蛋.

The present study was conducted to estimate the heritability and genetic correlations of traits related to egg quality in layers from pure line A,C,and D of"Jing Tint 1" package.Egg quality traits at 36 weeks of age were measured in three successive generations and genetic parameters were evaluated to provide essential data for making up scientific egg quality breeding program.The results showed that heritability for egg weight of line A,C,D was medium to high (0.46～0.59).The heritability was relatively low for eggshell strength,albumen height,Haugh unit and egg york color of line A (0.17～0,29).The heritability was medium for albumen height and Haugh unit of line C and line D (0.34～0.43),while it was low for eggshell strength and egg York color (0.16～0.26).The current study demonstrated the genetic parameters of egg quality traits in different lines,suggesting that the breeding methods should be adjusted according to genetic characteristic of egg quality in different lines to improve breeding efficiency and accelerate genetic progress.

研究旨在分析褐壳鸡蛋蛋壳颜色与鸡蛋各品质性状的相关性.选取北京市华都峪口禽业有限责任公司培育的褐壳蛋鸡纯系4个品系为试验材料,测定36周龄和56周龄时鸡蛋的蛋壳颜色、蛋壳强度、蛋壳厚度、蛋形指数、蛋重、蛋黄颜色、蛋白高度和哈夫单位,研究蛋壳颜色深浅与鸡蛋品质的相关性.结果表明:4个品系在36周龄和56周龄时,蛋壳颜色与蛋壳强度、蛋壳厚度呈中低度相关,且不同品系、不同周龄相关程度不同,蛋壳强度和蛋壳厚度随着蛋壳颜色变浅呈现降低的趋势.而蛋壳颜色与蛋形指数、蛋重、蛋黄颜色、蛋白高度和哈夫单位不相关.

目的 探究褐壳蛋、粉壳蛋和白壳蛋3种类型鸡蛋的品质差异以及对于蛋粉加工的潜在影响.方法 选用京红1号、京粉1号和京白1号所产的褐壳蛋、粉壳蛋和白壳蛋作为试验对象,对37周龄和51周龄蛋鸡所产3种类型鸡蛋的蛋品质进行分析比较.结果 37周龄和51周龄的白壳蛋蛋壳厚度、蛋壳比例和蛋壳强度均显著低于其他2个类型鸡蛋(P＜0.05);37周龄时3种类型鸡蛋的蛋黄水分含量没有显著性差异(P＞0.05);白壳蛋蛋清水分含量以及总水分含量均较其他2个类型鸡蛋要低.37周龄时褐壳蛋的蛋黄蛋白质和脂肪含量均显著高于其他2个品种,白壳蛋次之,粉壳蛋最低.37周龄时白壳蛋的蛋清蛋白质含量显著低于其他2个品种.由于蛋清中脂肪含量极少,本试验不予考虑.结论 褐壳蛋加工成蛋粉后具有更好的营养价值,而白壳蛋可以提高蛋粉加工的产量.

为持续选育改良"峪口京红1号"配套系纯系后期蛋品质,以该配套系纯系为研究素材,通过连续测定3个世代56周龄蛋品质相关指标,检验该配套系3个纯系品系的选育进展.结果显示,所测定的5项蛋品质指标中,3个纯系品系的蛋壳强度均随世代进展显著提高(P＜0.05),蛋白高度呈现出波浪式上升,蛋重、蛋壳颜色基本维持不变.表明经过3个世代的持续选育,3个纯系鸡群产蛋后期蛋重保持稳定的同时,蛋壳质量显著提高,内容物品质进一步提升,为"峪口京红1号"配套系后期蛋品质的持续改良奠定了基础.

Background: Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis (SE), as a major cause of foodborn illness, infects humans mainly through the egg. However, the symptom of laying hens usually is not typical and hard to diagnosis. In the present study, it is studied that the influences of SE infection on layers' performance, egg quality and blood biochemical indicators. It will help us to improve the strategy to control SE infection in commercial layers. One hundred layers at 20 wk of age were divided into 2 groups, 60 hens for experiment and others for control. The experiment group was fed with the dosage of 10(8) CFU SE per hen. The specific PCR was used to detect the deposition of SE. On the 8 d after SE infection, 10 hens from the control group and 30 hens from the experimental group were slaughtered to detect the SE colonization. The production performance, egg quality and blood biochemical indices were also analyzed.Results: The results showed that the colonization rate of SE was highest in caecum contents (55.17%) and lowest in vagina (17.24%). For the eggs the detection rate of SE was highest on the eggshell (80.00%) and lowest in yolk (18.81%). SE infection had no significant influence on production performance and egg qualities (P > 0.05). The difference of laying rate between the experimental and control groups was less than 0.30%, and both were approximately equal to 82.00%. The blood analysis showed that the aspartic aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) of experimental group was significantly higher than those of control group (P < 0.05). For experimental and control groups AST values were 236.22 U/l and 211.84 U/l respectively, and ALT values were 32.19 U/l and 24.55 U/l. All of coefficients were less than 20%. The colonization of SE in organs increases the enzyme activities of AST and ALT in blood.Conclusions: SE in feed could invade the oviduct and infect the forming eggs. It significantly increased the concentration of ALT and AST in blood. However, SE infection was hard to be observed from the appearances of layer and egg. It might be a dangerous risk to human health.