Increase Grade A Carcass Yield Herbert C. Jordan Associate Professor Poultry Science Penn State Bieast blisters may be the num ber one cause of B or lower grade carcasses in some meat birds. This problem may cause consumer rejection. If too many breast blisters appear on meat birds, try one or more of the following: (Emphasis here on 1,000- to 5,000-bird flocks.) • Purchase chicks or poults bred with a smooth keel bone with little or no unevenness on the bottom of the keel bone. A bone projection may cause excess pressure on skin and other tissue while the bird is sitting down, which may cause a blister to form. A breeder may be able to select for a large, smooth keel in some species. Use cool room brooding and improved rations from one to 10 weeks old to encourage feathers on breast to grow. Feathers cannot stop breast blisters but they do help cushion the breast when breast is on the lit- ter. Feathers also protect skin from direct contact with litter patho gens. Some breast blisters appear to start from within the skin, not externally. • Handle live birds to determine at what age breast blisters occur. Breast blisters before the bird is half grown may be started by con taminated, hard, sharp, wet, aner obic litter or infective or invasive organisms in litter. Deep, soft, dry litter seems to help in areas where birds rest on their breasts. Breast blisters after birds are about half way to market age (9 weeks in turkeys, 3 weeks in broilers, 4 weeks in roasters, 8 weeks in capons) may be caused by too much pressure on keel when bird is sitting too long. This can be remedied by keeping fat or finish off birds until 10 days before market, exercising birds several times a day by walking through birds (causing them to walk, not sit), and increasing the depth of soft litter two weeks before breast blisters are normally first seen. Many breast blisters start as an abnormal color on the skin. DURABILITY*-} ' YOU NEED AT S ' PRICES > YOU CAN AFFORD ; HEAVY DUTY AUGER* 4” _ 6”.8” -10”-12” Standard Sizes In Stock Custom Sizes Mode To Order FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL OR WRITE TODAY: HZP • Rarely, some producers find it is best to start with 4 inches of lit ter, then rototill it once every 3-6 weeks and use it again with new chopped straw or shavings on top after a rototilling for new birds. Deep straw litter may compost when tilled. If old deep litter is rototilled and found to be dusty, the dust may be settled before reuse with a spray treatment of 1.0 pint of chlorine bleach in 9 gallons of water, then put new litter down. This solution is poisonous, so do not breath it or expose hands or eyes to it Reuse of old litter is not recommended for best health of bird but sometimes in 4-inch to 6-inch deep chopped straw litter, a black compost may develop that seems to be free of most patho gens. Shallow, dirty wood bypro duct litter should not be reused if it is not composted. • Allowing birds to have granite grit from 12 days of age on may help them digest whole oats fed up to 20 percent of the ration. (Granite grit needs to be puiged from giz zard before processing.) Oats is believed to cause skin, fat and muscle to be more firm and be able to withstand impact without injury in sitting, loading, and processing. Replacing 100 pounds of com with high quality oats in a diet may also automatic farm systems 60S Evergreen Rd. Lebanon, PA 17042 (717) 274-5333 Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 23, 1991-A39 help reduce excess waste visceral fat that is lost in processing. • Vitamin-mineral-electrolytes (VME) fed in the water at A strength for only 3 days a week may help marginal birds stand up more and reduce wet litter prob lems. This program is quantitative ly critical and can be damaging if VME mixtures are fed too high inconcentration or too long a per iod of time. All water treatments may be flushed from a line after jise to prevent unwanted buildup of T)ollution in the line. • Wood chips with splinters or sharp hard edges may cause injury to gizzard, duodenum, foot, or breast. In some loads of birds man agers have seen, breast blisters arc reported high when foot injury is high. Detoeing surgery is not recommended some birds appear to get ascending leg or foot infections from it. Study ways to prevent downgrades without detoeing. • Leg weakness and breast blis ters in turkeys may occur when flock’s size or weight is uneven. Prevent extreme unevenness in flocks of any meat birds. At 3 weeks of age in broilers, 4 weeks in roasters, 8 weeks in capons, or 9 weeks of age in turkeys, handle 100 birds and examine foot and hock health. If hock is swollen and fevered, call a fieldman and react to it accordingly. If toe, footpad, or foot has any swelling, fever, chill, tremor, scaliness, or lesion, react to it even if you must lake one day a week to treat individual birds in a hospital pen. (Use a hospital pen.) • Examine feather growth on 30 birds in a flock every two weeks. If feather growth is too slow, uneven, twisted, soiled, or abnormal, react to the feather growth. Normal feathers and health go together. After 1-2 weeks of age in any meat bird, it is more expensive but better to have’ better quality feather growth and a cooler environment than to have air in the pen that is too warm, or hot, stuffy, stale, dus ty, or full of ammonia and micro bes. Warm, stale, humid, polluted air causes birds to severly pick at each other more. The bottom line in this program is tons of meat sold as Grade A. • On selective loading, we find birds left on the farm and never sent to slaughter can lose several hundred to several thousand dol lars per flock. • Accompany your birds to the processing plant, record all quality faults, and work back to the day old bird. From day-old to market, work out each problem as it needs corrected. Most problems we have with meat birds are caused by iheir inability to adapt to captivity, such Plan To Attend TWO HOMEOPATHIC FIRST AID SEMINARS Family Health ami Animal Hearth & Maintenance Both Seminars Will Be Held: December 11,1991 - 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Yoders Restaurant, New Holland, PA Seminar Speakers; Guy D. Hoagland, M.D. Margaret A. Paris, C.R.N.P. Bonnie M. Sheaffer, R.N. C. Edgar Sheaffer, V.M.D. Please Note: Reservations Must Be made By Tuesday, Dec. 3, 19911 For Reservations And Cost Please Call Hess Farm Supply: (717) 354-7972 or (717) 354-7935 as inadequate quality in living space, litter, water, oxygen (venti lation), lighting, surgery, care, breeding, or handling. Placing weak birds in the hospital pen is essential to market high risk weak birds later. Necropsy fresh, dead birds or take fresh refrigerated dead to the lab. • Pick up and examine 30 to SO day-old birds when they arrive; look for leg weakness, navel health, eye or respiratoiy disorder, abnormal skin or feather, abnor mal droppings, tremor, vigor, nor mal eating and drinking behavior, picking behavior, as well as any thing that appears abnormal. If anything is abnormal, seek help— you may only have one to three days to correct it Contact the hatchery and breeder. • Breast blisters do not just hap pen. They are caused by some thing. Some causes may be elu sive. However, the causes that can be found and corrected may improve performance and well being as well as income. Time, money, labor, meat water, electr icity, and managerial services in the processing plant are all wasted on a condemned or downgraded bird, so do not grow them or ship them. Those who believe they can market parts profitably from a downgraded bird may be deceiv ing the customer and themselves. A bird with a defective part may be accompanied by low quality in the entire carcass, so cutting it off gains little. This question can a profit be made by selling parts from a downgraded bird?) deserves study independently and collectively. • Select a few well-experienced people in your firm and have them study downgrades 100 to 1,000 hours a year. Learn cause and effect by keeping records. It would be interesting to compare condem nation body weights with the aver age weight of the flock to see what price would have been obtained if the birds had been sold as whole birds rather than parts. • A study may result in new information such as adult turkeys need only 26 square inches of floor space per pound of live weight, whereas a one week old turkey may need 360 square inches of floor space per pound of live bird. At early ages, floor space is more of a behavioral living space ques tion than one of adequate physical space because of age or size of bird. A happy bird is a productive bird in many cases. Give young birds plenty of space. Remember that energy expended, movement seen, and efficiency measured is greater in younger birds, so they need space to grow.
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