Histological development of papilla of preen gland in duck.

Precise study concerning the post hatch histological development of the papilla of preen gland has been less reported so far. A detailed study on the post hatch histological development of the papilla of immunologically important preen gland in the duck seemed to be appropriate. Hence, the study on papilla of preen gland was undertaken to trace the histological changes from the day of hatch to 150 days of age in ducks. The preen gland papilla was collected from 44 ducks from the day of hatch till 150 days of age. The papilla was cut into small pieces and fixed in 10 % neutral buffered formalin, Zenker’s fluid and Bouin’s fluid. The paraffin sections were stained by Erhlich’s haematoxylin and eosin, Mallory’s phosphotungstic acid haematoxylin method, Gomori’s aldehyde fuchsin technique, Gridley’s method for reticular fibres, Gomori’s one step trichrome method, Van gieson’s method and toluidine blue (Luna, 1968). In ducks, the preen gland was a paired organ. The glands of both sides together were ‘V ’ shaped with the apex directed backwards. The primary cavity of each preen gland was lined by one or two layers of columnar cells with spherical nuclei as reported in Japanese quail (Dhande et al., 1994). The primary cavity of each gland continued to form a duct, which opened separately onto a common papilla. These were also reported by Farner et