Early-life thermal stress and mid-growth light intensity as key environmental predictors of lameness in commercial Cobb 500 broilers under tropical closed-house production systems

Description

Parita Noisamran and colleagues link house conditions to lameness in Thai broiler chickens in a 2026 field study. Lameness hurts both bird welfare and farm income in fast-growing flocks. Records covered 296 flocks, about eleven and a half million birds, on five farms in Eastern Thailand during 2023. The team matched culling records against temperature, humidity, light, and ammonia by bird age.

Median lameness sat near one percent of birds, with wide differences between farms. Heat on the first day of life predicted later lameness, and day-to-day temperature swings on day seven mattered too. Light intensity at day fourteen showed the strongest single link in mid-growth. Ammonia joined the risk list from day twenty-eight onward. A combined model explained about 43 percent of flock differences. The authors advise tight climate control in the first two weeks, when legs are most vulnerable.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13290333