Post-Hatching Development of the Chicken Ovary (Alexandria breed)

Egg production has a great economic importance. Table egg have a high nutritive value and fertile egg is the backbone of the poultry industry. The ovary has the main role in egg production. Although vertebrates including the chicken display a superficial bilateral symmetry, most of the internal organs including the ovaries develop and locate with a consistent asymmetry. In the chicken only the left ovary and left oviduct are fully developed. Hence, lacking the scientific papers that concerned with this aspect of the developmental biology, our study will under taken to elucidate the post hatching development of the left ovary of 30 post hatched female chicks at various stages of development (10 chicks aged one day, 10 chicks aged one week, 10 chicks aged one month). The left ovaries examined anatomically, histologically and ultra-structurally. The left ovary of all ages female chicks located ventromedial to the anterior lobe of the left kidney showing variable shapes and sizes in different ages. The left ovary histologically exhibited a thick cortex and narrow medulla. The left ovarian cortex of the one day old chicks and the one week old chicks harboring a germ cells which presented as a solitary cells or in cell clusters. However, the left ovarian cortex of the one-month-old chicks contained variable size ovarian follicles surrounded by the theca layers.