Slow and steady wins the race: The behaviour and welfare of commercial faster growing broiler breeds compared to a commercial slower growing breed

Broilers have been bred for fast growth which has led to welfare problems such as high mortality, lameness and skin lesions. Slower growing breeds are thought to have better welfare but are not as efficient in production. This study investigated welfare, behaviour, production and meat quality of fas...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2020-04, Vol.15 (4), p.e0231006-e0231006
Main Author: Dixon, Laura M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Animal Husbandry
Animal protection
Animal Welfare
Animals
Behavior, Animal
Biology and Life Sciences
Birds
Breast
Breeding
Budgets
Chickens - growth & development
Conversion ratio
Feed conversion
Feeds
Growth rate
Meat
Meat - standards
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mortality
Pens
Proteins
Skin
Skin diseases
Skin lesions
Social Sciences
Time
Weight
Weight Gain
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Summary:Broilers have been bred for fast growth which has led to welfare problems such as high mortality, lameness and skin lesions. Slower growing breeds are thought to have better welfare but are not as efficient in production. This study investigated welfare, behaviour, production and meat quality of faster growing broilers from three main commercial broiler companies (breeds FA, FB and FC) with a commercially available slower growing breed (Hubbard JA757, S). Four hundred birds of each breed (total 1600 birds) were reared in pens of 50 birds, 8 per breed (total 32 pens). Home pen behaviour was recorded once a week in hourly scan samples to get behavioural time budgets. Welfare Assessments (WA) were done when the average bird weight per breed was 2.2 and 2.5kg. Birds and feed supplied were regularly weighed by pen and Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) and Average Daily Gain (ADG) were calculated at 2.2kg. Birds were then slaughtered and meat quality measures were taken. S and FC had lower mortality and culls due to lameness (P
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0231006