Evaluation of behavior and welfare in broilers reared in two different housing systems

Abstract EN

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different housing system (cages vs.

floor system) on behavioral patterns and welfare of broiler chicks.

One hundred and twenty broiler were allocated in to two housing system (cages and floor pen) in full environmental controlled pens for four weeks.

Assessment of welfare was through measuring general behavioral, tonic immobility test and heterophil: lymphocyte ratio (HLR).

Compared to cage reared birds, floor reared broilers exhibit higher level of feeding, drinking, crouching, walking behavior while caged birds were more often standing and also showed either more wing stretch, leg stretch or both wing& leg stretch than floor reared group.

Moreover, shortest duration of tonic immobility test was observed in floor reared birds than those housed in cages.

HLR were significantly higher in cages than floor group.

At the end of this experiment our obtained data suggested that housing in cages has adverse effect on welfare as it impair general behavioral patterns, birds showed more fearfulness also higher HLR which over all indicated stressful conditions for birds.

In conclusion, cages should not be recommended for broiler rearing from welfare point of view.