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Comparing the Welfare of Broiler Chickens in Two Intensive Production Systems in Israel
Plitman, L., Ben-Dov, D., Dolev, S...
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Abstract
For the purpose of growing chickens for meat (broilers) in Israel, it is common to house them in conventional deep litter. Recently, colony cages were introduced as an alternative housing system and the question of their impact on broiler welfare ensued. In order to evaluate and compare the broilers’ welfare in both systems, the Welfare Quality® assessment protocol was used. Both systems scored high on almost all measurements. Hock burns were relatively low in both systems but significantly lower in the deep litter system, while plumage cleanliness scored significantly higher in broilers reared in colony cages. Overall, the broilers' welfare in the colony cages was not considerably impaired according to the examined measurements of the assessment protocol, and the pilot study did not find enough evidence to sanction the use of colony cages altogether. However, the authors concluded that these findings were insufficient in determining the overall impact this system has on the broilers' welfare, due to the limited examination of the behaviour of the broilers. Further research to accurately evaluate the systems’ impact on broiler welfare is required.
Key words: Broilers; Welfare; Colony cages; Housing system; Production system.
Introduction
Traditionally, broilers in Israel are reared on litter-bedded floors, in large flocks consisting of thousands of birds in one barn. Recently, a reservation has arisen regarding the use of modern multi-tier colony cages (CC) as an alternative to the conventional deep litter (DL) housing system. In order to evaluate the welfare of broilers reared in CC systems, the Welfare Quality® assessment protocol (WQP) (1) was used in a comparative pilot study. This protocol, the most widely used in Europe, was developed as part of the largest European research project on animal welfare (2). It emphasizes animal-based measures to assess the ‘outcome’ of the interaction between the animal and its environment, in the form of housing design and management (3).
Currently, Israel does not have specific regulations regarding the rearing of broilers and usually relies on European legislation as general guidelines. European Council Directive 2007/43/EC, lays down minimum requirements for rearing broilers. The directive does not prohibit rearing broilers in cages but requires the provision of litter (4), which isn’t provided in the CC in Israel. Reviewing the scarce published research on CC, accentuated the difficulty in drawing firm conclusions on the extent of the systems’ impact on the broilers’ welfare (5).
Therefore, an urgent need to examine the new caging system and its effect on the broilers’ health, behaviour and overall welfare ensued, and served as the impetus for this preliminary study.
Materials and methods
The WQP for poultry was used to compare animal-, resource- and management-based measures between two housing systems – CC and DL. The assessment was carried out on two separate farms under the same management between April and May 2020. Day-old broiler chicks were purchased from the same commercial hatchery and randomly allotted to each farm, 15,800 in Farm A and 14,000 in Farm B. The broilers were slaughtered at 35 days, at a commercial slaughterhouse. The final slaughter body weight was 2.3 kg for broilers from farm A (DL) and 2.4 kg for broilers from farm B (CC).
Farm A consisted of a DL housing system, with an open-sided barn with wire mesh fences and pine woodshavings litter (supplied by Menashe-Menashe woodshavings supplier, Ltd.). The barn had a usable space of 1250m2 (~0.08m2 per broiler), with 288 feed pans and 1280 nipple drinkers. Farm B consisted of a CC housing system (Model Avina, Big Dutchman, Holland). Cages in the experiment were made of zinc-aluminum-coated wire with side opening grills, soft flexible plastic mesh flooring and a Polypropylene conveyor belt underneath. The netting floor was divided into pivoting sections that could open up to allow the broilers to fall onto the conveyor belt from a low height. The conveyor belt had a dual function: 1 – collecting the droppings and transporting them out of the coop. 2 – easy moving-out of the broilers with little or no human handling. The CC system consisted of 6 rows of 5-tier cages, with each tier divided into 4 compartments. Each compartment had a usable space of 3.7m2 (~0.07m2 per broiler), with 2 feed pans and 12 nipple drinkers. Each compartment was populated with 56 broiler chickens. The coop had a closed ventilation system with humidity and temperature monitoring and control.
Welfare measures were recorded on the farm and at the slaughterhouse while using the sample sizes specified in the WQP for animal-based measures; for each on-farm measures (Plumage cleanliness, Panting, Huddling), One hundred random birds were assessed from each farm (n=600). For each measure of injuries recorded in the slaughterhouse (Breast blisters, Hock burn, Footpad dermatitis), 100 random birds were examined from each farm (n=600). For measures of signs of diseases were recorded in the slaughterhouse (Emaciation, Ascites, Dehydration, Septicaemia, Hepatitis, Pericarditis, Abscess), slaughterhouse records of meat hygiene inspection process were used (n=8976). [...]
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The Israel Journal of Veterinary Medicine is available as an open, online journal for veterinarians worldwide.
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