Locomotor problems in broilers reared on new and re-used litter

Abstract

Two field trials were conducted to assess locomotor problems in broilers. Males and females broilers were used from two commercial strains reared on two different litter materials, new and re-used. In the first experiment (E1) rice husks and wood shavings were used as new litter, and in the second experiment (E2) the same litter was re-used. A batch of one-day-old chicks (2968) was reared randomly distributed in experimental pens, in a 2x2x2 factorial scheme (two genetic strains, two sexes and two litter materials). The same fodder and water were available to all birds ad libitum. Broilers locomotion problems were evaluated using the characteristics of gait score, incidence of valgus and varus, foot-pad lesions, degeneration, femoral, tibial dyschondroplasia, spondylolisthesis and breast calluses. The number of birds with high gait score was less than 30% in the two experiments. Males presented higher gait score (GS) (28.46% GS 1 and 2 compared to females, 20.98%); greater incidence of angular deformities (26.62% with valgus compared to 14.71% of the female); and femoral degenerative joint lesions (70.83% in average, compared to 55.16% of the female), and the correlation between these traits varied from 0.18 to 0.87 (P<0.05). There was an increase of foot-pad lesions in re-used litter leading to poor welfare. The use of rice husks in deep litter for broiler production might be a viable alternative of wood shavings.

Keywords

• Litter quality, Gait score, Walking ability