The effects of floor design on performance, carcass traits, meat quality, and economic efficiency in broiler production

This study was carried out to determine the effects of different levels of littered and slatted floor applications on performance, slaughter, carcass, meat quality and productivity in broilers. In this study, 600 fast growing broiler chicks (Ross308) of male-female mixed were used. The study consisted of five treatment groups: fully littered, fully slatted, ½ littered+½ slatted, 1/3 littered+2/3 slatted, and 2/3 littered+1/3 slatted. In the study, weekly individual body weights, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, livability and EPEF values were determined. From each treatment, 10 females and 10 males were slaughtered at 6 weeks of age and internal organs, carcass parts, breast and thigh color and pH, and white striping and blood stain formations on breast meat were determined. In order to reveal the profitability of the systems, economic efficiency analyzes were made. While different floor arrangement treatments significantly affected body weights at 6 weeks of age (p=0.009) and feed conversion ratio (p=0.001), feed consumption, livability and EPEF values were similar between treatments. Chickens in 1/3 slatted+2/3 littered floor system had the highest body weight at 6 weeks. The feed conversion ratio of the broilers in the fully slatted system was found to be worse than the other groups. Breast meat of female chickens in 1/3 slatted+2/3 littered system had a lighter (p=0.008) and redder (p<0.001) than the others. While the highest gross profit and profitability ratio was obtained in the 2/3 slatted system (79.92%), the lowest gross profit and profitability ratio was realized in the 1/3 slatted system (68.15%). Our study results show that the slatted floor systems have a very low share in the total carcass production costs and that the 2/3 slatted+1/3 littered floor applications offer high profitability, and these systems can be a good alternative for fully littered systems.