Keel fracture changed the behavior and reduced the welfare, production performance, and egg quality in laying hens housed individually in furnished cages

Abstract

Keel fracture has adverse effects on welfare, behavior, health, production performance, and egg quality of laying hens. To investigate this, 90 healthy Lohmann white laying hens with normal keel bones at 17 wk of age (WOA) were used in this study and housed individually in furnished cages. All hens were marked with fractured keel (FK) or normal keel (NK) based on the keel bone status through palpation at 5 time-points (22, 27, 32, 37, and 42 WOA). After the palpation, the behavior was observed for 2 consecutive days at each time-point, and the total number of eggs produced, dirty eggs, broken eggs, and feed intake of FK and NK laying hens were recorded at 27–32, 32–37, and 37–42 WOA, respectively. After each behavioral observation, 10 fresh FK hens and 10 NK hens were randomly selected to determinate the welfare and egg quality. The results showed that the incidences of keel fracture increased with the age of laying hens. Compared with NK hens, the sitting and standing behaviors significantly increased (P 0.05). During the experiment period, the egg production rate, body weight, daily feed intake, and eggshell strength, thickness, and weight decreased (P 0.05). Therefore, keel fracture in laying hens caused changes in behavior and reduced the welfare, production performance, feed intake, and eggshell quality.

Keywords

• laying hen
• keel fracture
• behavior
• welfare
• performance