HISTOLOGY AND HISTOCHEMISTRY OF THE GALL BLADDER IN SIRUVIDAI CHICKEN

The present investigation aims to study the histological and histochemical details of the gall bladder in four different age groups viz.2,6,12 and 18 week-old Siruvidai chicken, an indigenous poultry ecotype of Tamil Nadu. Six healthy birds from each group were used. Gall bladder tissues were collected, fixed in various fixatives, processed by paraffin embedding, sectioned at 5–6 µm and subjected to histological and histochemicalstaining techniques. The gall bladder had three tunics. The innermost tunica mucosa was folded, forming short villous-like projections. It was lined by simple columnar epithelium which was PAS-positive and also showed alcianophilic reaction. The middle tunica muscularis consisted of circularly arranged smooth muscle fibres, while the outermost tunic, serosa in the free surface and adventitia in the attached surface of the gall bladder. Significant difference was observed in the mean thickness of all the three tunics and epithelial cell height across all the four age groups under study.