Increased activity in broiler chickens is associated with better feed conversion.

ABSTRACT: Farmers are understandably concerned that many proposed improvements to broiler chicken welfare such as 'enrichments' lead to the birds being more active, eating more and therefore result in financially detrimental effects on Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR). The current evidence is inconclusive, but most research so far has relied on small-scale pen studies, not flocks studied under commercial conditions. We measured the life-long activity of 34 commercial flocks of Cobb broilers using smart camera technology and analyzed the data using four statistical descriptors of the patterns made by flock movements - mean, variance, skew and kurtosis of optical flow. For each day, we scored each flock by its scaled deviation from the median for each of the four descriptors and gave it 4 overall activity

SUBMITTER: Donnelly CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12925194 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature