Animal Welfare 1- DRUM EVALUATION OF BROILERS OVER TWENTY YEARS OF SELECTION. E. Briggs 1,*, R. Lopez 1, E. Kneeland 1, S. A. Orlowski 2, N. B. Anthony 2, D. C. Bennett 3, K. J. Tarrant 1 1California State University - Fresno, Fresno, 2University of Arkansas, Fayetteville , 3California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo, United States
[email protected] Objectives: As a result of genetic selection pressures, economically important traits continue to make gains in fast growing boilers. In order to understand the impact that has taken place over time on profitable traits, such as live weight, as well as indirectly selected traits, whole leg and tibia parameters of two genetic broiler lines representing the 1995 and 2015 broiler maintained at the U. Arkansas were compared. Materials and Methods: One hundred twenty broilers, evenly split between the 1995 RAN and 2015 RAN lines, were reared straight-run with ab libitum access to industry standard feed and water (IACUC Approval #15039). Fifteen birds were weighed, then euthanized at each time point from each line (d 0, d 14, d 28, and d 42). Left legs were disarticulated, weighed and cleaned of flesh and tendons. The following tibia measurements were collected; tibia weight, tibia lengths, proximal width-frontal, distal width-frontal, midpoint width, proximal width-sagittal, distal width-sagittal. Max load, load break, load extension, and compressive strain was calculated for d 14, d 28, and d 42 using an Instron Universal Testing Machine (IUTM). Spacing used for IUTM test are as follows: 2 cm for d 14, 4 cm for d 28, 5 cm for d 42.