Sex and age effects on hematology and serum metabolites of noiler chicken

Abstract

Haematological investigation provides the opportunity to clinically study the presence of several metabolites and other constituents in the body of animals and it plays a vital role in the physiological, nutritional and pathological status of an organism. A total of one-hundred and fifty (150)- day old Noiler chicken (70 –males and 80 females) were used to study the impacts of sex and age on hematology and serum metabolites in Noiller chicken. Data collected at 6th, 8th, and 10th week on hematological parameters and serum biochemistry were subjected to two-way analysis of variance and Pearson correlation. At 6th week, sex had no significant effect (p>0.05) in both hematology parameters and serum metabolites. At 8th week, sex significantly (p<0.05) affected Mean corpuscular volume ( MCV), Mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), albumin/globulin ratio (A/G) and chloride, with higher values recorded in female except in chloride. Sex effect was observed in white blood cell (WBC), total protein (TP) and AST at 10th week. In female virtually all the parameters considered were significantly (p<0.05) affected by age, except red blood cell (RBC), mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC) , glucose, chloride, urea and creatinine. While in male, age effect was only observed in urea, MCH, MCV, WBC and platelet. The correlations among the hematology parameters ranged between -0.678 and 0.999 while among the metabolites was -0.958 and 0.586 for both sexes. It could be concluded that hemato-biochemical parameters considered are age–dependent in female more than male while sex effects were limited.