Effect of heat and nutritional stress on growth and testicular HSP70 expression in goats

A study was conducted to assess the combined effects of heat and nutritional stress on body weight changes and HSP70 gene expressionin Osmanabadi goats. Twenty four adult Osmanabadi bucks were divided into four groups of six animals each viz. C (control), HS (heat stress), NS (nutritional stress) and CS (combined stress). The C and HS bucks had ad libitum access to their feed while NS and CS bucks were subjected to restricted feed (30% intake of C bucks) to induce nutritional stress. The HS and CS bucks were exposed to heat stress in outside environment for six hours a day between 10:00 h to 16:00 h. Both C and HS groups showed significantly higher (P