scholarly journals Broilers'toes asymmetry and walking ability assessment

2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 538-546
Author(s):  
Irenilza de A. Nääs ◽  
Marta dos S. Baracho ◽  
Douglas D. Salgado ◽  
Lilia T. Sonoda ◽  
Victor R. C. Carvalho ◽  
...  

Brazilian poultry production nowadays occupies important position in world's economy due to its technological advancement, which associated to the development of genetic strains of high growth may cause deviation in the growth rate and harm production. Morphological asymmetry has been pointed as an indicator of welfare, as maintained the pattern that leads to balance, the broiler chicken would have its normal locomotion characteristics, freely reaching water and feed. Thus, the objective of this research was to verify the possibility of using morphological asymmetry for evaluating walking ability of broiler chicken. The research was done in the Technology Center, at UNICAMP. The experiment was made using biomechanics analysis and following, the toes were measured. Results found did not show asymmetry useful for determining the locomotion ability of broiler chicken. New studies are recommended in order to search for other correlations that might help to estimate at field level, the locomotion difficulties of broiler chicken.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann C. Rayner ◽  
Ruth C. Newberry ◽  
Judit Vas ◽  
Siobhan Mullan

Abstract Broiler chicken welfare is under increasing scrutiny due to welfare concerns regarding growth rate and stocking density. This farm-based study explored broiler welfare in four conditions representing commercial systems varying in breed and planned maximum stocking density: (1) Breed A, 30 kg/m2; (2) Breed B, 30 kg/m2; (3) Breed B, 34 kg/m2; (4) Breed C, 34 kg/m2. Breeds A and B were ‘slow-growing’ breeds (< 50 g/day), and Breed C was a widely used ‘fast-growing’ breed. Indicators of negative welfare, behavioural indicators of positive welfare and environmental outcomes were assessed. Clear differences between conditions were detected. Birds in Condition 4 experienced the poorest health (highest mortality and post-mortem inspection rejections, poorest walking ability, most hock burn and pododermatitis) and litter quality. These birds also displayed lower levels of behaviours indicative of positive welfare (enrichment bale occupation, qualitative ‘happy/active’ scores, play, ground-scratching) than birds in Conditions 1–3. These findings provide farm-based evidence that significant welfare improvement can be achieved by utilising slow-growing breeds. There are suggested welfare benefits of a slightly lower planned maximum stocking density for Breed B and further health benefits of the slowest-growing breed, although these interventions do not offer the same magnitude of welfare improvement as moving away from fast-growing broilers.


2013 ◽  
Vol 740-742 ◽  
pp. 323-326
Author(s):  
Kassem Alassaad ◽  
François Cauwet ◽  
Davy Carole ◽  
Véronique Soulière ◽  
Gabriel Ferro

Abstract. In this paper, conditions for obtaining high growth rate during epitaxial growth of SiC by vapor-liquid-solid mechanism are investigated. The alloys studied were Ge-Si, Al-Si and Al-Ge-Si with various compositions. Temperature was varied between 1100 and 1300°C and the carbon precursor was either propane or methane. The variation of layers thickness was studied at low and high precursor partial pressure. It was found that growth rates obtained with both methane and propane are rather similar at low precursor partial pressures. However, when using Ge based melts, the use of high propane flux leads to the formation of a SiC crust on top of the liquid, which limits the growth by VLS. But when methane is used, even at extremely high flux (up to 100 sccm), no crust could be detected on top of the liquid while the deposit thickness was still rather small (between 1.12 μm and 1.30 μm). When using Al-Si alloys, no crust was also observed under 100 sccm methane but the thickness was as high as 11.5 µm after 30 min growth. It is proposed that the upper limitation of VLS growth rate depends mainly on C solubility of the liquid phase.


2008 ◽  
Vol 600-603 ◽  
pp. 115-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik Pedersen ◽  
Stefano Leone ◽  
Anne Henry ◽  
Franziska Christine Beyer ◽  
Vanya Darakchieva ◽  
...  

The chlorinated precursor methyltrichlorosilane (MTS), CH3SiCl3, has been used to grow epitaxial layers of 4H-SiC in a hot wall CVD reactor, with growth rates as high as 170 µm/h at 1600°C. Since MTS contains both silicon and carbon, with the C/Si ratio 1, MTS was used both as single precursor and mixed with silane or ethylene to study the effect of the C/Si and Cl/Si ratios on growth rate and doping of the epitaxial layers. When using only MTS as precursor, the growth rate showed a linear dependence on the MTS molar fraction in the reactor up to about 100 µm/h. The growth rate dropped for C/Si < 1 but was constant for C/Si > 1. Further, the growth rate decreased with lower Cl/Si ratio.


2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (5) ◽  
pp. 1569-1579
Author(s):  
Fei Hu ◽  
Bin Cheng ◽  
Lingjuan Wang-Li

HighlightsParticulate matter (PM) data were analyzed to identify PM emission characteristics among different animal types.The PM concentrations were higher in broiler chicken and swine farrowing houses and were higher in winter.The PM emissions were also higher in broiler chicken houses and swine farrowing rooms.The PM in the layer chicken house in Indiana had narrower distributions with a greater percentage of smaller particles.Abstract. Understanding the characteristics of particulate matter (PM) emissions from animal feeding operations (AFOs) is essential to address the associated health and environmental impacts and to develop control strategies to mitigate such impacts. This article reports a study of PM concentrations and emission characteristics from 26 poultry and swine production houses to investigate the similarities and differences in PM emission characteristics, e.g., concentrations, emission rates, and particle size distribution (PSD), among different animal and housing types. Concentration and emission data for PM2.5, PM10, and total suspended particulates (TSP) collected by the National Air Emission Monitoring Study (NAEMS) were used to compare the differences among different production practices and animal types. The PSDs of the PM were examined based on the PM2.5/PM10 and PM10/TSP emission rate ratios. It was discovered that the concentrations of PM varied among animal types. For poultry, the concentrations of PM were higher in broiler houses than in other poultry houses. For swine, the average concentrations of PM were higher in farrowing rooms than in swine barns. Moreover, the PM concentrations in poultry and swine houses exhibited significant seasonal trends, with higher concentrations in winter and lower concentrations in summer, which were in a reverse relationship with ventilation rates. The PM emissions also varied among animal types. For poultry, the PM emissions were significantly higher for poultry production houses in California. For swine, the PM emissions were significantly higher for farrowing rooms than other swine houses. The PSD of PM varied among animal types, with mass median diameters (MMD) in the ranges of 6.51 to 13.62 µm for poultry houses and 7.94 to 17.19 µm for swine houses. The geometric standard deviations (GSD) were in the ranges of 1.66 to 2.71 and 1.65 to 2.9 for poultry and swine PM, respectively. The PM in the layer house in Indiana had a narrower distribution (smaller GSD) with a greater percentage of smaller particles than the other poultry houses, while the PM in the broiler house in California had a broader distribution (larger GSD) than the other poultry houses. For swine, the PM in the sow barn in North Carolina had a narrower distribution (smaller GSD) than the other swine houses, while the PM in the farrowing houses in Oklahoma had a broader distribution (larger GSD) than the other swine houses. The knowledge gained from this research may provide insights for addressing the PM emissions from various animal production systems. Keywords: Concentration and emission, Particulate matter, PM2.5, PM10, Poultry, swine, PSD, TSP.


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