. 2022 Nov 11;13:1019741. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2022.1019741

TABLE 3.

Effect ^a of a 3-week chronic cyclic heat stress ^b on immune organ parameters in breeder ducks.

	Week 0		Week 3
Parameters ^c ^, ^d	Control	Heat stress	Control	Heat stress
Hen
Body weight (kg)	3.55 ± 0.078	3.38 ± 0.038	3.58 ± 0.057^a	3.16 ± 0.038^b
Spleen (g/kg)	0.41 ± 0.028	0.40 ± 0.025	0.48 ± 0.034	0.44 ± 0.018
Follicles (#)	6.1 ± 0.31	5.7 ± 0.45	5.2 ± 0.20	4.4 ± 0.31
Liver (g/kg)	24.3 ± 0.93	24.4 ± 2.03	22.2 ± 0.67	22.6 ± 0.10
Drake
Body weight (kg)	3.71 ± 0.100	3.78 ± 0.160	3.97 ± 0.150	3.56 ± 0.066
Spleen (g/kg)	0.57 ± 0.051	0.54 ± 0.040	0.52 ± 0.017	0.55 ± 0.021
Testes (g/kg)	30.0 ± 3.29	24.2 ± 2.72	25.8 ± 2.58	25.4 ± 1.58
Liver (g/kg)	18.4 ± 0.73	16.5 ± 1.16	15.4 ± 0.77	14.3 ± 0.85

^{^a}

Data shown are means ± SEM, n = 10/treatment for hens and 5/treatment for drakes.

^{^b}

Breeder ducks exposed to cyclic heat stress (350C for 10h/day and 29.50C for the remaining 14h/day) or control measured 1 week before HS and 3 weeks after.

^{^c}

The table shows Tukey-kramer pairwise comparisons of HS and control groups. Different letter coding within parameter is significantly different (p ≤ 0.05).

^{^d}

Values of spleen, liver and testes are relative to the body weight (g/kg).