Early warning of footpad dermatitis and hockburn in broiler chicken flocks using optical flow, bodyweight and water consumption
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Dawkins, MS
Roberts, SJ
Cain, RJ
Nickson, T
Donnelly, CA
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Footpad dermatitis and hockburn are serious welfare and economic issues for the production of broiler (meat) chickens. The authors here describe the use of an inexpensive camera system that monitors the movements of broiler flocks throughout their lives and suggest that it is possible to predict, even in young birds, the cross-sectional prevalence at slaughter of footpad dermatitis and hockburn before external signs are visible. The skew and kurtosis calculated from the authors’ camera-based optical flow system had considerably more power to predict these outcomes in the 50 flocks reported here than water consumption, bodyweight or mortality and therefore have the potential to inform improved flock management through giving farmers early warning of welfare issues. Further trials are underway to establish the generality of the results.
Date Issued
2017-02-27
Date Acceptance
2017-02-03
Citation
VETERINARY RECORD, 2017, 180 (20)
ISSN
0042-4900
Publisher
BMJ PUBLISHING GROUP
Journal / Book Title
VETERINARY RECORD
Volume
180
Issue
20
Copyright Statement
© 2017 The Author(s). British Veterinary Association. This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000401650300016&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Veterinary Sciences
PAD DERMATITIS
LITTER QUALITY
WELFARE
BEHAVIOR
PREVALENCE
POULTRY
PREDICTION
PATTERNS
LESIONS
BURN
Chicken welfare
automated assessment
flock behaviour
foot pd dermatitis
hock burn
Animal Welfare
Animals
Body Weight
Chickens
Cross-Sectional Studies
Dermatitis
Drinking
Foot Diseases
Optical Phenomena
Poultry Diseases
Predictive Value of Tests
Tarsus, Animal
0707 Veterinary Sciences
Publication Status
Published