Bone breakage in three strains of end-of-lay hens

Abstract

Spent hens of two commercial lines and one heritage line of layers were slaughtered at 72 wk of age and dissected to determine the number of bone fractures before shipping, during depopulation and shipping, and during slaughter. The ISA-Brown and Babcock B300 hens had higher incidences of old (11.1 and 11.7%) and shipping breaks (7.9 and 10.0%) than a line of Brown Leghorns (0.0 and 3.5%, respectively), suggesting that selection of commercial layers for increased egg production may have affected bone strength. All hens experienced broken bones during processing. Key words: Layers, strain, bone breakage