30% of broilers have leg disorders
21 July 2000
30% of broilers ‘have leg disorders’
ALMOST one in three broiler chickens in Britain could be suffering from serious and dehabilitating leg disorders, claims a leading academic.
New research from Denmark has found that 30% of the broilers suffered from these conditions, reports the BBC Radio 4 Farming Today < programme.
Cambridge University professor of animal welfare Donald Broom claims these figures can equally be applied to the UK industry.
But poultry industry leaders refute this completely and say the situations in the two countries are not comparable.
They will present their own study to the Farm Animal Welfare Council on Monday (24 July) which concludes that less than 2% of birds suffer from leg disorders.
Prof Broom said he would trust the results of the Danish study, and said its conclusions were similar to those of a Bristol University study nine years ago.
While there were some variation in genetic lines, the line used in the study is widely used in the UK, insisted Prof Broom.
The Danish situation would certainly have exact parallels in the UK. There isnt a general difference between the UK and Denmark, he told Farming Today.
But British Poultry Meat Federation chief executive of the Peter Bradnock said the sort of broilers reared in Denmark are not in commercial use in the UK.
He added: If youre interested in the condition of broiler chickens you dont look in Denmark, you look in Britain
Thats precisely what we have been doing for the past six years and all the evidence is there with the Farm Animal Welfare Council.
Prof John McInerney of Exeter University, who chairs the Farm Animal Welfare Councils poultry working group, admitted the gap in findings was hard to reconcile.
He said if one study showed 30% of birds had leg disorders and the other only 2%, it could cast doubt on the meaningfulness of results.