Estimation of survival and viability in chickens based on blood phospholipid patterns

A problem of health monitoring and viability in chickens is still being one of the most actual. The lipids as energetic substrates and components of cell membranes are necessary for maintaining viability and could indicate changes in the tissues and organs under stress and pathology, but the data on biological function of phospholipids are still limited. Nevertheless, their role in animal adaptation and homeostasis, blood rheology, hepatoprotection, regeneration was reported. The balance between blood phospholipids, which are the main components of cell membranes in different organs or in the nervous tissue mainly, is dramatic with regard to the accordance in chicken growth and development of nervous system, affecting the viability. In 1, 7, 23 и 42 days aged broiler chickens ISA-15 Hubbard F 15 from a poultry farm in Chelyabinsk district we showed age-related changes in the specific patterns of different classes of blood phospholipids and their relation to viability. In particular, a dynamics of kephalins is possibly depends on a functional activity of hart-vascular system and liver and coincides with the «critical» periods in broilers' ontogenesis (7 and 23 days) under rearing at the poultry farms. To estimate the mode of blood phospholipids utilization for membranes formation, we suggest a formula for calculation of phospholipids index (PI). This PI may be used in the control of chicken physiological status during rearing to correct the feeding and technological schemes properly and also to select the highly viable individuals.