An investigation of a reported case of white striping in broilers

Market reports of white striping in broiler breast fillets have been increasing, which has generated concerns in the broiler meat industry regarding negative effects on consumer acceptance. This study was conducted to macro- and microscopically characterize the condition of white striping at varying degrees of severity on Cobb 500 broiler breast fillets slaughtered at 42 d of age. Carcasses of 2,512 broilers presenting white striping were slaughtered and macroscopically classified according to the degree of severity of the striations as moderate or severe; further histological microscopic evaluation demonstrated degenerative myopathy in both moderate and severe cases, but 75% of those breast fillets were classified as moderate. Typically, the samples classified macroscopically as moderate showed microscopic necrosis only (65.17%) or moderate multifocal necrosis (9.83%), whereas those classified as severe showed diffuse and strong necrosis (25.00%). The proliferation of connective tissue was not observed for either of the degrees of white striping investigated, characterizing this profile as an acute occurrence.     

Movement of broiler chickens reared in commercial conditions

1. Bird movement was studied at various ages in two flocks of 18,200 broiler chickens. 2. One-d-old chicks placed in corners of a 29 x 14 m brooding area dispersed evenly over the whole area in a period of 48 h. 3. At 15 d of age, when released from the brooding area, birds which were among the first to move to the far end of the house did not necessarily remain in that area of the house. 4. Starting at 4 and 5 weeks of age, birds marked individually were variable in their movement throughout the house during a 16- and 9-d period respectively. Even the least mobile individual covered an area of the house containing several thousand birds. 5. Closer scrutiny of movement by individual birds showed that some moved over areas of 20 m2 in an hour. Birds moved further than was necessary simply to reach food and water. No agonistic interactions were observed and there was no evidence that crowding was a physical restraint on bird movement. 6. Results indicated that birds were not generally attached to a particular site in the shed and that social factors did not restrict movement. Some implications of bird movement are discussed with regard to performance, welfare and leg abnormalities.     

White striping prevalence and its effect on meat quality of broiler breast fillets under commercial conditions

White striping (WS), characterized by white striations on the Pectoralis major muscle, is an emerging problem for the broiler industry. Thus, the impact of WS on meat quality has become a current research topic. In this context, a 2‐year follow‐up study, to reveal the prevalence of WS in broiler integrations, was undertaken. Additionally, a laboratory experiment was conducted to determine the oxidative quality during storage and the differences in proximate composition, colour and fatty acid and amino acid profiles of broiler breast fillets scored visually as normal, moderate and severe. In integrations, the WS incidence increased with increasing broiler age and more than 50% of breast fillets obtained from 32‐ to 35‐day‐old broilers and 36‐ to 39‐day‐old broilers had stripes with different scores. Lower protein and higher fat contents were measured in the moderate and severe scored fillets than the normal fillets (p < 0.001). Severe score stripes induced the formation of less redness on the ventral surface (p < 0.05) and a darker colour on the dorsal surface (p < 0.01). The lowest histidine, arginine and tryptophan amounts were determined in severe fillets (p < 0.05). Moderate and severe scored fillets were rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids implying that they were sensitive to lipid oxidation. That suggestion was further proven by the higher TBARS values. Freeze‐thawing induced the formation of carbonyl compounds, but it did not cause differences in sulphydryl groups. Briefly, we suggest that different WS scores may affect the physicochemical and oxidative quality of breast fillets; however, more studies are needed to assert an accurate and explicit judgement.     

Practical assessment and management of foot pad dermatitis in commercial broiler chickens: A Field Study

Foot pad dermatitis (FPD) is a welfare concern in broiler chickens characterized by ulcerated lesions on the pad of the foot, which results from prolonged contact of foot pads with wet litter. During Canadian prairie winters, barn moisture levels tend to increase due to reduced ventilation as a means of conserving heat and minimizing costs. However, there are no published benchmarks regarding the prevalence of foot pad dermatitis in broilers reared in western Canadian provinces such as Alberta, Canada. As such the objectives of the current study were to evaluate practical means of assessing FPD in Alberta broilers as well as on-farm management practices which correlate with higher prevalence of foot pad dermatitis. A management-practices survey and 3 foot pad assessment methods were used to benchmark foot pad dermatitis in 32 broiler flocks throughout the province of Alberta. Four flocks per farm were sampled from a total of 8 commercial broiler farms. Per flock, 200 birds were assessed on-farm, 3 processor-line scores were taken at the processing plant, and 600 foot pad samples were assessed post-processing. The prevalence of foot pad dermatitis by assessment method was benchmarked on a per-flock basis at 28.65% on-farm, 26.17% on the processing line (processor-line), and 31.83% for samples taken off the processing line (processor-sampled). On-farm and processor-sampled assessment results were highly correlated (r = 0.90) compared with processor-line and on-farm (r = 0.77) and processor-line and processor-sampled results (r = 0.72; P < 0.001). Specifically, processor-line assessments were not found to be reliable when repeated (P > 0.10). On farm, wheat straw was used by the majority of Alberta’s producers (62.5%) and was associated with a higher prevalence of foot pad dermatitis per flock (40.6%). In contrast, pine shavings was associated with lower FPD prevalence (6.4%; P < 0.001), but was used by only 21.9% of producers in Alberta. Primary results from this field study support the use of on-farm FPD assessments rather than processor-line-based assessments, and a shift away from wheat straw as a broiler litter substrate.     

Dietary mannanase‐hydrolyzed copra meal improves growth and increases muscle weights in growing broiler chickens

The utilization of copra meal as a feed ingredient is limited because it contains a high level of mannan. However, recent findings indicate that the effect of copra meal on growth performance in broiler chickens can be improved by the supplementation of mannanase in the diet. In the present study, we examined the effect of mannanase‐hydrolyzed copra meal (MCM) on growth performance and muscle protein metabolism in growing broiler chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus). Forty 8‐day‐old male broiler chicks were assigned to two groups (four birds in each pen, five replicates) and fed either a commercial diet (as a control diet) or a diet containing MCM at 0.2% until 22 days of age. Dietary MCM significantly increased the weights of body, breast muscle, and thighs in chickens, whereas the weights of abdominal adipose tissue and liver were not affected. Cumulative feed intake was significantly increased by MCM. Dietary MCM significantly decreased plasma 3‐methylhistidine level. The messenger RNA and protein levels of muscle protein metabolism‐related factors were not altered by MCM. These findings suggest that the growth‐promoting effect of MCM is related to the suppression of muscle proteolysis in growing broiler chickens.     

Analgesic effects of morphine and butorphanol in broiler chickens

Objective

To evaluate analgesic efficacies of morphine and butorphanol in lame broiler chickens.

Genetic analysis on body weight at different ages in broiler chicken raised in commercial environment

A multivariate model was developed and used to estimate genetic parameters of body weight (BW) at 1–6 weeks of age of broilers raised in a commercial environment. The development of model was based on the predictive ability of breeding values evaluated from a cross-validation procedure that relied on half-sib correlation. The multivariate model accounted for heterogeneous variances between sexes through standardization applied to male and female BWs differently. It was found that the direct additive genetic, permanent environmental maternal and residual variances for BW increased drastically as broilers aged. The drastic increase in variances over weeks of age was mainly due to scaling effects. The ratio of the permanent environmental maternal variance to phenotypic variance decreased gradually with increasing age. Heritability of BW traits ranged from 0.28 to 0.33 at different weeks of age. The direct genetic effects on consecutive weekly BWs had high genetic correlations (0.85–0.99), but the genetic correlations between early and late BWs were low (0.32–0.57). The difference in variance components between sexes increased with increasing age. In conclusion, the permanent environmental maternal effect on broiler chicken BW decreased with increasing age from weeks 1 to 6. Potential bias of the model that considered identical variances for sexes could be reduced when heterogeneous variances between sexes are accounted for in the model.     

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Ileal endogenous amino acid flow of broiler chickens under high ambient temperature

High environmental temperature has detrimental effects on the gastrointestinal tract of poultry. An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of acute heat stress on endogenous amino acid (EAA) flow in broiler chickens. A total of 90, day‐old broiler chicks were housed in battery cages in an environmentally controlled chamber. Chicks were fed a nitrogen‐free diet on day 42 following either no heat exposure (no‐heat) or 2 weeks exposure to 35 ± 1 °C for 3 h from days 28 to 42 (2‐week heat) or 1 week exposure to 35 ± 1 °C for 3 h from days 35 to 42 (1 week heat). The most abundant amino acid in the ileal flow was glutamic acid, followed by aspartic acid, serine and threonine in non‐heat stressed group. The EAA flow in 1‐week heat and 2‐week heat birds were significantly (p < 0.05) higher than those under no heat exposure (14682, 11161 and 9597 mg/kg of dry matter intake respectively). Moreover, the EAA flow of 2‐week heat group was less than 1‐week heat group by approximately 36%. These observations suggest that the effect of heat stress on EAA flow is mostly quantitative; however, heat stress may also alter the content of EAA flow qualitatively.     

肉鸡血浆VLDL浓度的选择效应—肉仔鸡体重和血浆VLDL

以父线代肉种鸡为材料,用比浊法测定血浆ＶＬＤＬ浓度,分别以１６周龄,６周龄血浆ＶＬＤＬ浓度为选择指标建立零世代,一世代肉鸡高脂系和低脂系地肉鸡体重和血浆ＶＬＤＬ浓度的选择反应。结果：１．零世代,一世代肉鸡血浆ＶＬＤＬ浓度变异很大,变异系数分别为４３．６％－７４．６％和３８．７％－７９．９％,二个世代选择后,血浆ＶＬＤＬ浓度变异系数在高,低脂质中分别为３７％－５２％和３１％－４６％,表明对血浆ＶＬＤ     

β-羟基-β-甲基丁酸对肉仔鸡生长性能和屠宰性能的影响

选择240只7日龄肉仔鸡按照体重相近原则随机分为5组,每组6个重复,每个重复8只,分别饲喂添加0%、0.01%、0.055%、0.1%、0.145% β-羟基-β-甲基丁酸(HMB)的试验日粮.采用三层笼养,试验期35 d.试验结果表明:(1)不同水平HMB对肉仔鸡生产性能的总体影响不显著.7～21日龄时,与对照组相比,0.145% HMB组内仔鸡料重比降低6.06%(P＞0.05);0.1%和O.145%HMB肥组肉仔鸡死亡率低于对照组水平.22～42日龄时,0.145%HMB组肉仔鸡采食量与对照组相比降低9.94%,各处理组体增重和料重比差异不显著(P＞0.05);7～42日龄时.0.145%HMB组肉仔鸡采食量与对照组相比降低9.03%(P＜0.05),各处理问体增重和料重比无显著差异,但0.145%HMB组肉鸡料重比最小.0.1%和0.145%HMB组肉仔鸡死亡率低于对照组和其他处理组.(2)肉仔鸡的屠宰性能包括屠宰率、半净膛、全净膛率、胸肌率、腿肌率和腹脂率在各处理问无显著差异(P＞0.05),0.145%HMB组肉仔鸡腿肌率较对照组提高3.74%(P＝0.075).可见,在7～42日龄内仔鸡日粮中添加适量的HMB可显著降低肉仔鸡采食量.而体增重和饲料效率无显著变化,并有促进肉仔鸡腿部肌肉生长发育的趋势.