Evaluation of cage floor systems for production of commercial broilers.

Flooring materials evaluated consisted of three types of mesh (wire, steel, and plastic), three types of perforated floor (wood, styrofoam, and plastic), and three types of doweling (rigid, rotating, and padded). A solid wood floor with wood shavings litter served as a control. Parameters measured included body weight at 4, 6, and 8 wk and dressed carcass weight. Breast blisters, feather soilage, broken bones, feed consumption, percentage abdominal fat, and mortality rate for each floor type were also evaluated. Birds grown on wire mesh floors experienced a significant reduction in live body weight at 6 and 8 wk of age when compared with all other floor types tested. The remaining experimental floor types were comparable to the litter floor control group when using body weight as the performance criterion. The mesh floors experienced the highest incidence of breast blisters and the padded dowel group experienced the least. Feather soilage was a problem only with the perforated wood and styrofoam floor systems. Abdominal fat did not seem to be related to experimental floor type. The incidence of wing breakage during processing was significantly greater than leg breakage for all floor systems tested. Mortality was only a problem with the birds reared on wire mesh floors. The overall data suggests that a padded dowel floor system can be used to produce cage broilers about 2,500 g in weight without leg or breast damage and that these birds will be equivalent to those currently produced by the industry on a litter floor system.