Broiler Welfare

About the Project

Broiler performance can be affected by many environmental stressors, including air temperature and quality, social interactions, litter moisture and quality, and pathogens. These stressors lead to decreased feed intake and subsequent growth as well as physiological responses that can further reduce performance and disease resistance - commonly referred to as the “fight or flight” response. One hallmark of stress response is an elevation in circulating levels of corticosterone (CORT). A negative side-effect of elevated CORT is diminished feed intake and immune responses to environmental pathogens common in poultry houses that can lead to disease states. This consequence of environmental stress is potentially exacerbated by the absence of antibiotics in antibiotic-restricted poultry production. Therefore, this objective is aimed at approaches to alleviate potential environmental stressors, develop automated and quantitative non-invasive methods to assess stress levels, and to communicate the approaches and methods developed to the poultry industry.

Publications

Team Members

Tom E Porter,
Team Leader
University of Maryland Professor teporter@umd.edu
Sami Dridi University of Arkansas Associate Professor dridi@uark.edu
Michael Czarick University of Georgia Senior Public Service Associate mczarick@uga.edu
Brian Fairchild University of Georgia Professor, Extension Poultry Scientist brianf@uga.edu
Gregory P. Martin The Pennsylvania State University Poultry Extension Educator gpm10@psu.edu
Monique Pairis-Garcia North Carolina State University Associate Professor mpairis@ncsu.edu
Shawna Weimer University of Maryland Assistant Professor slweimer@umd.edu
Raghava Rao Kommalapati Prairie View A&M University Professor rrkommalapati@pvamu.edu
Philip Moore USDA-ARS, Fayetteville, AR Soil Scientist philip.moore@usda.gov