Rates of and reasons for condemnation of poultry carcases: harmonised methodology at the slaughterhouse

Abstract

European hygiene regulations require the condemnation of any unsafe food. However, there is little information identifying and quantifying condemnation of poultry carcases at slaughterhouses. We present an in-depth view of rates of and reasons for the condemnation of broiler, turkey, meat and force-feeding duck, guinea fowl carcases in France. The experiment was conducted in 10 slaughterhouses. For one year, all condemnations were recorded on a standard form following a national reference system. The rates of and reasons for condemnation, as well as factors influencing variation were investigated. The global condemnation rates were 1.04 per cent for broilers, 1.85 per cent for turkeys, 1.23 per cent for meat ducks, 1.42 per cent for force-feeding ducks and 1.20 per cent for guinea fowl. Condemnation rates depended on several factors including slaughterhouse, animal gender and season. Reasons for condemnation varied with species, for example, the three main reasons for broilers were cachexia (41.8 per cent of condemned batches), generalised congestion (29.3 per cent) and non-purulent cutaneous lesions (14.2 per cent) versus conformation abnormalities (58.6 per cent), cachexia (14.61 per cent) and ascites (14.56 per cent) for meat ducks. While the condemnation rates can be considered low for all species, the difference between the rates of and reasons for condemnation highlights the need to lead species-specific epidemiological studies to improve the sanitary situation of poultry production.

Comparison of the welfare of laying hens, broiler chickens and turkeys in terms of bird health as surveyed during inspection in slaughterhouses

“…Such data have not been published yet for other countries to a comparable extent. As Salines et al (2017) pointed out, studies presenting findings at slaughterhouses are difficult to compare. Study samples vary greatly, they are often small and not randomly selected, and thus it is not certain if they reflect the situation for an entire poultry production at a national level.…”

“…Several studies attempted to identify and quantify condemnation of poultry carcases at slaughterhouses (Radkowski et al 1996;Ansari-Lari and Rezagholi 2007;Santana et al 2008;Lupo et al 2010;Ferreira et al 2012;Ghaniei et al 2016;Salines et al 2017).…”

Associations between phenotypic characteristics and clinical parameters of broilers and intestinal microbial development throughout a production cycle: A field study

“…In both farms, the body weight was above the Ross 308 performance standards (Aviagen, 2019) Note: #1 Rather standard levels of infection on broiler farms (Peek et al, 2017). #2 For Farm 2, the condemnation rates were slightly above (Farm 2) and below average (Farm 1) compared with average rates for European broiler farms and the reasons for condemnation did not indicate specific abnormalities related to poor health (Löhren, 2012;Salines, Allain, Roul, Magras, & Le Bouquin, 2017) (D = day). Note: The coccidiosis lesion score (CLS) is used to determine the presence and severity of infections with Eimeria species (Johnson & Reid, 1970) and can range from 0 to 4 with higher scores indicating more severe lesions.…”

Broiler carcass condemnation pattern during processing

“…might be associated with other factors such as genetic strain, metabolism, or health (Amini et al, 2015;Salines et al, 2017).…”