The Productivity and Financial Impacts of Eight Types of Environmental Enrichment for Broiler Chickens

Jones, Philip; Tahamtani, Fernanda M.; Pedersen, Ida J.; Niemi, Jarkko; Riber, Anja B.

doi:10.3390/ani10030378

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Results of the current study showed that pen enrichment resulted in lower body weight and higher FCR in both fast and slower-growing chickens. These findings are supported by recent studies [ 63 , 64 ], who observed a negative effect of pen enrichment on growth performance. In an earlier comparable study [ 38 ], pen enrichment resulted in lower body weight, but also in a higher FI and a lack of effect on FCR.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Effects of pen enrichment on leg health of fast and slower-growing broiler chickens

et al. 2021

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Pen enrichment for broiler chickens is one of the potential strategies to stimulate locomotion and consequently contribute to better leg health and welfare. This study was designed to evaluate effects of using a plethora of pen enrichments (barrier perches, angular ramps, horizontal platforms, large distance between feed and water and providing live Black Soldier fly larvae in a dustbathing area) on tibia characteristics, locomotion, leg health and home pen behaviour of fast and slower-growing broiler chickens. The experiment was set up as a 2 x 2 factorial arrangement with a total of 840 male broiler chickens in a complete randomized design (7 pens per treatment and 30 chickens per pen) with the following treatments: 1) pen enrichment (enriched pen or non-enriched pen); 2) broiler strain (fast-growing Ross 308 or slower-growing Hubbard JA 757). Home pen behaviour and use of enrichment were observed. At approximately 1400 and 2200 g body weight, two chickens per pen were randomly selected and slaughtered, to investigate tibia morphological, biophysical and mechanical characteristics and leg health. Pen enrichment positively affected tibia biophysical characteristics, e.g., osseous volume (Δ = 1.8 cm3, P = 0.003), total volume (Δ = 1.4 cm3, P = 0.03) and volume fraction (Δ = 0.02%, P = 0.002), in both fast and slower-growing chickens, suggesting that pen enrichment particularly affects ossification and mineralization mechanisms. Accordingly, locomotion and active behaviours were positively influenced by pen enrichment. However, pen enrichment resulted in lower body weight gain in both strains, which might be due to higher activity or lower feed intake as a result of difficulties of crossing the barrier perches. Regarding the strain, slower-growing chickens showed consistently more advanced tibia characteristics and more active behaviour than fast-growing chickens. It can be concluded that pen enrichment may lead to more activity and better bone development in both fast and slower-growing chickens.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Effects of pen enrichment on leg health of fast and slower-growing broiler chickens

et al. 2021

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“…Results of the current study showed that pen enrichment resulted in lower body weight and higher FCR in both fast and slower-growing chickens. These findings are supported by recent studies [61,62], who observed a negative effect of pen enrichment on growth performance. In an earlier comparable study [38], pen enrichment resulted in lower body weight, but also in a higher FI and a lack of effect on FCR.…”

Section: Growth Performancesupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Scattering mealworms [36] and Black Soldier fly larvae [37,38] on the litter in fast-growing broiler chickens resulted in increased physical activity and locomotion. A large distance between feeder and drinker as a pen enrichment also resulted in a high percentage of active behaviours [38,62,90]. Different dustbathing materials, such as moss-peat have also been found to contribute to activity of broiler chickens [35,38].…”

Section: Home Pen Behaviour and Use Of Enrichmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of pen enrichment on leg health of fast and slower-growing broiler chickens

Guz

Jong

Silva

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Pen enrichment for broiler (meat-type) chickens is one of the potential strategies to stimulate locomotion and consequently contribute to leg health and welfare. This study was designed to evaluate effects of using a plethora of pen enrichments (barrier perches, angular ramps, horizontal platforms, large distance between feed and water and providing live Black Soldier fly larvae in a dustbathing area) on tibia characteristics, locomotion, leg health and home pen behaviour of fast and slower-growing broiler chickens. The experiment was set up as a 2 x 2 factorial arrangement with a total of 840 male broiler chickens in a complete randomized design (7 replicates per treatment and 30 chickens per replicate) with the following treatments: 1) pen enrichment (enriched pen or non-enriched pen); 2) broiler strain (fast-growing Ross 308 or slower-growing Hubbard JA 757). Home pen behaviour and use of enrichment were observed. At approximately 1400 and 2200 gram body weight, two chickens per pen were randomly selected and slaughtered, to investigate tibia morphological, biophysical and mechanical characteristics and leg health. Pen enrichment positively affected tibia biophysical characteristics, e.g., osseous volume (?=1.8 cm3, P=0.003), total volume (?=1.4 cm3, P=0.03) and volume fraction (?=0.02 %, P=0.002), in both fast and slower-growing chickens, suggesting that pen enrichment particularly affects ossification and mineralization mechanisms. Accordingly, locomotion and active behaviours were positively influenced by pen enrichment. However, pen enrichment resulted in lower body weight gain in both strains, which might be due to higher activity or lower feed intake as a result of difficulties of crossing the barrier perches. Regarding the strain, slower-growing chickens showed consistently more advanced tibia characteristics and more active behaviour than fast-growing chickens. It can be concluded that pen enrichment may lead to more activity and better bone development in both fast and slower-growing chickens.

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“…These findings are supported by recent studies (Jordan et al, 2011;Bach et al, 2019), who observed a negative effect of pen enrichment on growth performance in terms of feed intake and body weight gain. However, the results of current study are not in accordance with other studies (Pettit-Riley and Şimşek et al, 2009;Yıldırım and Taşkın, 2017;Jones et al, 2020), who found no significant effects of pen enrichment on growth performance parameters. This discrepancy among studies might be related to the fact that less complex pen enrichment forms were used in these studies compared to the current study.…”

Section: Growth Performancecontrasting

confidence: 99%

Healthy bones for broiler chickens

Guz¹

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Due to these welfare and economic consequences, enhancing leg health of broiler chickens has become important. In General Introduction, firstly an overview on suboptimal leg health, leg bone abnormalities and leg disorders in broiler chickens and their welfare and economic consequences will be described. Thereafter, attention will be drawn on bone quality measurements and potential approaches to improve leg health in broiler chickens. The aim and the outline of this thesis are given at the end of General Introduction. SUBOPTIMAL LEG HEALTH IN BROILER CHICKENSSuboptimal leg health is a major welfare issue in broiler chickens and causes considerable economic losses since lame chickens have difficulties accessing feed and water, suffer from dehydration and starvation, or even die, especially in the last weeks of rearing period

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The Productivity and Financial Impacts of Eight Types of Environmental Enrichment for Broiler Chickens

Cited by 9 publications

References 23 publications

Effects of pen enrichment on leg health of fast and slower-growing broiler chickens

Effects of pen enrichment on leg health of fast and slower-growing broiler chickens

Effects of pen enrichment on leg health of fast and slower-growing broiler chickens

Healthy bones for broiler chickens

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