Comparison of Aviary, Barn and Conventional Cage Raising of Chickens on Laying Performance and Egg Quality

Abstract

This study intended to compare the productive performance of three different layer raising systems; conventional cage (CC), barn (BR) and aviary (AV). The AV is welfare bestowed housing that allows free locomotion for birds within the BR. The BR allows bird’s free locomotion inside BR but without multilevel structures. Both pullets and cockerels were housed together in both AV and BR, but only pullets in CC. Seventeen weeks old Lohmann Brown Lite (n = 800) pullets were housed in AV during this study. The same age layer pullets were simultaneously assigned to either at CC or BR to compare egg production performance with AV. The duration of experiment was 40 weeks (from 21st to 60th week). There were no remarkable differences in egg production, hen day egg production (HDEP) and average egg weight among three rearing systems. First 20 weeks (phase-1) average HDEP (%) of AV, CC, and BR were 85.9, 88.8, 87.1 and average egg weights (g) were 57.5, 59.9, and 56.9 respectively. Those of the remaining 20 weeks (phase-2) were 87.1, 87.9, 85.5 and 64.2, 63.0 62.1, respectively. Daily feed intakes (122 g, 110 g, 125 g); feed conversion ratio (2.4, 2.1, 2.5) and daily egg mass (53.9 g, 54.4 g, 52.8 g) data from AV, CC, and BR were not influenced significantly by the respective raising systems. Daily feed intake of layers in both AV (124 g) and BR (127 g) tended to be higher than that in CC (113 g) during phase-2. Overall, exterior egg quality (dirty and cracked eggs) in both phases was superior in BR compared with AV and CC, whereas CC generated intermediate results. This study indicated that the HDEP per se in AV and BR were not significantly different from that in CC. The study implied that the facility depreciation cost for AV and cost for increased feed intake in AV compared to CC are believed to be critical to evaluate the cost effectiveness of egg production in AV.

Effects of cage and barn rearing system on early laying performance of pullet

“…Lower albumen height caused the lower albumen index of an egg. Singh et al (2009) and Ahammed et al (2014) found lower albumen height in eggs from floor than cage system, which was also the case in present research. Lower albumen height of eggs may be due to their exposure to ammonia (from litter) which affects albumen quality (Roberts, 2004).…”

Impact of different housing systems and age of layers on egg quality characteristics

“…However, Englmaierová et al (18) observed that the albumen and yolk index were higher in enriched cages and aviaries. In the present study, eggs from the FR system had the highest shape index and yolk index values among all of the housing systems, but some other researchers found that housing system did not affect yolk index and shape index (15,19).…”

“…Previous studies compared traditional cages with other housing systems and observed thicker egg shells and better breaking strength in aviary and barn eggs (15,20). In the present study, housing systems did not affect egg shell thickness and shell breaking strength.…”

Yetiştirme Sistemleri ve Kabuk Renginin Bazı Yumurta Kalite Parametrelerine Etkisi

“…There was a statistical difference between organic and freerange groups on analysis of the effect of rearing systems on shell thickness (p<0.05) ( Table 1). Studies on this subject, similarly found significant effect of rearing systems on shell thickness 1,3,9,17,18 . Contrarily, there are studies, which did not find a statistical difference between rearing systems and shell thickness 4,16,19 .…”