Location: Egg and Poultry Production Safety Research Unit
Project Number: 6040-32420-002-007-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 1, 2018
End Date: Jan 30, 2020
Objective:
The long-term goal is to understand how management practices and challenges influence Salmonella spp. shedding from laying hens in cage-free systems.
The specific objectives for this grant is to:
A. Examine the role of northern fowl mites (NFM) on laying hen performance and welfare.
B. Assess impacts on the shedding of Salmonella spp., as well as environmental and egg microbiology.
C. Evaluate egg quality as impacted by NFM.
Approach:
Production parameters will be collected throughout the production cycle, compiled and analyzed for differences between treatments. Egg production and mortality will be collected daily while case weights will be measured weekly. Once per month, feed consumption, hen body weights, and egg and component weights will be measured. The severity of the northern fowl mites (NFM) infestation will be monitored every week by catching hens in each room and visually scoring the vent area and vent skin. The well-being of hens will be evaluated every month using an accepted standard. The European Union sponsored the Welfare Quality® (WQ) project (Welfare Quality® Consortium, 2009) with the goal of creating a standardized, performance-based, on-farm assessment scheme, with validated benchmarks. At each sampling period, 20% of hens per room will be evaluated for the following: 1) percent of hens panting (as an indicator of heat stress), 2) deformation of the keel bone, 3) skin lesions, 4) plumage damage, 5) plumage dirtiness, 6) lice/mite infestation, 7) foot pad condition, 8) toe damage, 9) enlarged crops, 10) eye condition, 11) comb abnormalities, and 12) beak condition and abnormalities.
Beginning at approximately 22 wks of age, every 12–14 wks nest run eggs will be collected and shipped to the Egg Safety and Quality Research Unit, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Athens, Georgia, for egg quality evaluation with eggs being analyzed within three days of being received. The evaluation will include: egg shape and volume assessment, static compression shell strength, shell thickness, Haugh unit, vitelline membrane strength and elasticity, and whole egg total solids.
Beginning at hatch (chick paper swabs will be utilized for 0 wks assessment), monthly fresh fecal pools will be sent to USDA-ARS for microbial analysis. Fecal samples will be assessed for the prevalence of Salmonella and Campylobacter spp. according to common laboratory practices (Jones et al., 2014). After the introduction of NFM, allotments of NFM will also be collected and shipped with monthly fecal pools for pathogen assessment. Beginning at approximately 22 wks of age, nest run eggs will be collected and shipped to the Egg Safety and Quality Research Unit and processed according to the procedures of Jones et al. (2014) for shell emulsion and egg contents determination of Salmonella and Campylobacter spp. prevalence. Environmental swabs will also be collected at the same time and assessed for pathogen prevalence.
