Reducing the incidence of FPD – a case study
Sheepdrove Organic Farm produces around 90,000 organic chickens a year. All birds
are processed in an on‐farm abattoir, allowing instant feedback on a range of
production factors – including levels of FPD.
Birds are brooded in groups of 2,000 in brooder houses with verandas to ensure
birds get used to natural light. Chicks are also played recordings of sounds they are
likely to hear when they go out to the field. In the brooding phase wood shavings are
provided as bedding.
At 28 days old the birds are moved out to the field. Before 2008, straw was used as
bedding material in the field huts and this was topped up with fresh straw as
required. However, despite this regular topping up, it was hard to keep the bedding
dry and FPD levels could get quite high with over 70% of birds showing lesions and a
slightly smaller percentage showing severe lesions; some birds were found with
ulcerated feet at slaughter.
As a result, in 2008, the poultry manager decided to bed the birds on wood shavings
from placement at day old through to slaughter. The new system required around
12–14 bags of wood shavings for each 500 bird house, with more shavings added
regularly – usually about once a week, depending on the weather – throughout the
birds’ lives. In total, around 24 bags of wood shavings were needed to provide
bedding for each group of 500 birds from four weeks old when they go out to the
field to slaughter at 10–12 weeks old.
Wood shavings are more expensive than straw and using them through out the
birds’ lives adds approximately ₤120 (or around $200) to the cost of rearing each
group of 500 birds. However, the poultry manager reports that the benefits have
been immense: the results from the processing site showed that there was a clear
difference in levels of FPD from birds reared on wood shavings all through their lives
compared to birds reared in the field on straw. The levels of FPD on the farm now
run at between 5–15%, compared with previous levels of more than 70% when straw
bedding was used in the past.