Does environmental enrichment improve performance, morphometry, yield and weight of broiler parts at different ages?

Abstract

The inclusion of environmental enrichment in conventional broiler rearing can increase mobility, bone mass and muscle. This research aimed to evaluate the use of environmental enrichment in the rearing of broilers at different ages and its influence on performance, morphometry, yield and weight of the parts. It was used the completely randomized design in split-plot scheme, being the plots the treatments presence (T1) and absence (T2) of environmental enrichment and the subplots the broiler ages (1, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35 and 42 days), with 56 chicks in each treatment (T1 and T2). Data obtained were analyzed by the linear effect model of fixed effects and compared by Tukey’s test of means. The animals were raised in a controlled environment, divided into four boxes with dimensions: 1.5 × 1.0 × 0.7 m, containing rice straw bed. In T1 a ladder with a perch on top was used, distributed every 1.5 m2. Environmental enrichment used did not influence broiler’s zootechnical performance. Broilers’ morphometric properties, parts weight and body weight increased due to environmental enrichment and, improvement was observed in chicks rearing’s final phase. The environmental enrichment was beneficial for muscle and bone mass gain in the main commercial parts of the chicken carcass, in addition to reducing the allometric coefficient of the breasts in chickens.

Welfare of broilers on farm

“…Due to the early slaughtering age of broilers and the weight of the breast muscles, fast growing broilers do not use perches very much (Norring et al, 2016;Bailie et al, 2018b;Spieß et al, 2022b). But when perches are offered and used, the morphometry of fast-growing Cobb broilers is changed as shown by Nazareno et al (2022). Unfortunately, in this study, the use of the perches was not quantified.…”

“…But when perches are offered and used, the morphometry of fast‐growing Cobb broilers is changed as shown by Nazareno et al. ( 2022 ). Unfortunately, in this study, the use of the perches was not quantified.…”