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316064

Effect of different types of available litter materials on the performance and welfare of broiler chickens

Article

Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

Animal Production

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the quality of some locally available litter materials and their impacts on productivity, health status, carcass traits and welfare as well as the economic efficiency of broiler chickens reared on these types of litter. A total of 450 unsexed one-day-old Cobb500 broiler chicks were randomly distributed into equal five experimental groups, three replicates each. The groups of five different litter materials were as follow; wood shaving (WD), wheat straw (WS), sand (SL), bean straw (BS) and rice husk (RH). Physical and physicochemical characteristics of litter types were measured at 7, 21 and 42 days of age. Behavioral observation was carried out twice daily at two intervals. Productive and economic traits such as; LBW, BWG, ADG, FC, FCR, EPEI and economic efficiency per pen were measured or calculated.  Further, some carcass traits and welfare parameters were measured at 42 day of age including footpad dermatitis (FPD) and feather condition score (FS). The results indicated that each type of litter had its unique physical and physicochemical characteristics and significantly (P≤0.05) affected most of the studied traits; productive performance (LBW, BWG, FI, FCR, livability %, and EPEI), economic feasibility, behavior patterns, and welfare. Compared different types of litter, WD and SL significantly (P≤0.05) improved growth performance, economic efficiency, behavior patterns, and birds' welfare. Interestingly, the SL group surpassed all other litter types groups in respect to productivity, behavior and welfare. Finally, it can be concluded that among the available litter materials tested, sand is advisable to be used as an alternative litter of straw and rice husk based litter for broiler chickens without adverse implications on birds' performance and welfare.

DOI

10.21608/ajar.2023.316064

Keywords

broiler, Behavior, litter type, performance, Welfare

Authors

First Name

M. Sh.

Last Name

Abougabal

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Animal Production Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

M. F.

Last Name

Taboosha

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Animal Production Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

Volume

48

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

43347

Issue Date

2023-06-01

Receive Date

2023-09-05

Publish Date

2023-06-01

Page Start

139

Page End

152

Print ISSN

1110-1563

Online ISSN

2786-0051

Link

https://ajar.journals.ekb.eg/article_316064.html

Detail API

https://ajar.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=316064

Order

316,064

Type

Original Article

Type Code

929

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Al-Azhar Journal of Agricultural Research

Publication Link

https://ajar.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Effect of different types of available litter materials on the performance and welfare of broiler chickens

Details

Type

Article

Created At

24 Dec 2024