Effect of different litter treatments on production performance of broiler chickens

Abstract

In modern poultry production, foot pad dermatitis (FPD) represents one of the main problems on broiler chicken legs with significant affect on animal welfare and performance. This problem is not solved by the using of straw as litter. Different treatments of straw are needed to eliminate the adverse effects of this material as litter. The most widely used method to improve the quality of litter is chopping straw and application of microbial products on that. These procedures can decrease the moisture in the litter and reduce the population of microorganisms whose activity produces ammonia, and hence improving environmental conditions in facilities. The experiment involved four treatments with four replications with a total of 300 broilers per treatment. The treatment I was unchopped straw, treatment II was chopped straw, treatment III unchopped straw with the addition of microbial products, and treatment IV was chopped straw with the addition of microbial preparation. Duration of trial was 42 days. During the experiment, the following production parameters were measured: body weight per week of the experiment, feed conversion ratio, mortality and FPD. Results of the trial point out that the best production results were in treatment IV with an average final body weight of 2.456g and feed conversion ratio of 1.71.