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The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of early feed restriction (FR) with wet feeding on size of small intestine, blood lipids and performance parameters in broilers from d 1 to 42. A total of 160 one-day-old male broiler chickens were randomly allocated to 4 treatments with 4 pens per treatment and 10 chickens per pen, in a fully randomized 2 × 2 factorial arrangement, two feeding arrangement; providing feed ad libitum (Full Fed) or FR by 50% between days 6 to 12, and feed in either wet or dry form (wet form, 1.2 g water per 1 g dry feed). Body weight and feed intake of broiler chickens were determined at d 0, 21, and 42, and feed conversion ratio (FCR) was calculated. At d 42, two birds per replicate were euthanised for determination of carcass weight, organ weight and length, and also for blood parameters, which included high density lipoprotein (HDL), low density lipoprotein (LDL), total cholesterol and triglycerides (TG). The broilers fed wet form irrespective of FR throughout had superior body weight gain and carcass weight compared with birds fed dry diets at d 22 and 42 (P < 0.05). The wet form with FR significantly showed lower FCR compared with the wet form and ad libitum at d 1 to 21 (P < 0.05). The broilers fed wet form had significantly increased HDL, LDL, and total cholesterol and decreased TG (P < 0.05). In conclusion, wet form can improve performance growth and blood parameters, and the FR birds were able to attain normal market body weight at d 42, which suggests that growth compensation occurred.

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An experiment was conducted to compare a commercial corn-soya bean meal diet with a pearl millet (raw and sprouted) diet containing less soya bean meal, alone or in combination with exogenous enzyme, on growth performance and ileal villus development of chicks. Two-hundred-and-forty-one-day-old male broilers (10/pen) were randomly allocated to one of the following dietary treatments: (i) a standard corn-soya bean meal control diet (CTL); (ii) a raw pearl millet-soya bean meal diet (PM); (iii) a sprouted pearl millet-soya bean meal diet (SPM); (iv) CTL + exogenous enzymes (CE); (v) PM + exogenous enzymes (PE); and (vi) SPM + exogenous enzymes (SPE) with four replicate pens/treatment. Body weight of birds at day 21 did not differ between those fed the CTL, and SPM and PE diets. In comparison with feeding broilers the CTL diet, feeding the PE and SPM diets caused significant decrease in feed intake, but with equivalent growth and feed efficiency. However, at day 21, feed conversion ratio did not differ between birds fed the CTL diet and those fed the PM, PE and SPM diets. At day 21, broilers fed the PM and PE diets had longer villi (p < 0.05) than those fed the CTL diet. At day 21, villi width was reduced (p < 0.05) by raw pearl millet supplementation than CTL diet. It is concluded that, in comparison with corn, broiler diets formulated with sprouted pearl millet or pearl millet with enzyme require less soya bean meal and can be used to improve growth performance traits and villus development.

Subjects with stuttering may show different numbers of stuttering-like disfluencies during reading and monologue tasks. The study aimed to compare the speech rate and stuttering frequency during reading and monologue tasks in subjects with stuttering and those with fluent speech. Materials and Methods: A total of 24 subjects with stuttering and 24 subjects with fluent speech participated in this analytical-descriptive cross-sectional study. A video camera recorded the participants' reading and monologue samples. The second version of the computerized scoring of the stuttering severity (CSSS-2) software and Praat version 5.3.78 was used to measure stuttering severity and speech rate, respectively. Statistical analysis was conducted in SPSS version 23 by applying the Independent t-test and Spearman's correlation coefficient. Results: In stuttering subjects, the mean stuttering frequency was higher during monologue than reading, but not statistically significant (P=0.05). In both groups, the mean speech rate was significantly higher during reading compared to monologue. Also, in both reading and monologue tasks, the mean speech rate was significantly higher in subjects with fluent speech than in those who stutter (P<0.001). Finally, a significant negative correlation was observed between the mean stuttering frequency and speech rate during both tasks. Conclusion: Considering the monologue time, subjects with stuttering have higher speech rate and less stuttering in reading. Because of stuttering-induced speech disruptions, subjects with stuttering speak slower during both reading and monologue tasks compared to subjects with fluent speech.