Modelling broiler chicken health and welfare in a changing climate
type: CreativeWork
description: Agriculture is particularly exposed to climate change, which threatens global food security. To date, climate change impact assessments on future food availability have focussed primarily on crop production. Projections of climate change impacts on livestock are relatively rare, with productivity gains and losses yet to be fully quantified. This thesis aimed to quantify and project the impacts of climate change on loss of market weight broiler (meat) chickens due to poor health and welfare at slaughter. Focussing on the mild temperate climate of Great Britain (GB), this thesis considered how weather has impacted on the health and welfare of commercial broiler chickens in the past, and how changing weather patterns in GB might impact on broiler health and welfare in the future. An environmental epidemiological approach and methodology was applied to an extensive slaughterhouse dataset shared by the Food Standards Agency, UK, and to historical weather and climate projection data obtained via the Met Office and Centre for Environmental Data Analysis. A descriptive epidemiological analysis of 16 health and welfare conditions, recorded during routine ante- and post-mortem inspections in slaughterhouses across GB, was used to identify those conditions most likely to be affected by weather. Daily counts of ascites (a common metabolic disorder) and abnormal colour/fever (septicaemia/toxaemia: a systemic bacterial infection) were examined in relation to outdoor temperature throughout broilers’ lifespan by means of time-series regression; a statistical approach rarely utilised in animal welfare science. A distributed lag non-linear model defined the U-shaped relationship between daily mean temperature and day-to-day changes in the number of broilers found dead on arrival or dead in the lairage (DOA) at slaughter. This information was applied to UK climate projections (UKCP18) to estimate temperature-related death losses of market weight broilers in Central England during 2040…
abstract: Agriculture is particularly exposed to climate change, which threatens global food security. To date, climate change impact assessments on future food availability have focussed primarily on crop production. Projections of climate change impacts on livestock are relatively rare, with productivity gains and losses yet to be fully quantified. This thesis aimed to quantify and project the impacts of climate change on loss of market weight broiler (meat) chickens due to poor health and welfare at slaughter. Focussing on the mild temperate climate of Great Britain (GB), this thesis considered how weather has impacted on the health and welfare of commercial broiler chickens in the past, and how changing weather patterns in GB might impact on broiler health and welfare in the future. An environmental epidemiological approach and methodology was applied to an extensive slaughterhouse dataset shared by the Food Standards Agency, UK, and to historical weather and climate projection data obtained via the Met Office and Centre for Environmental Data Analysis. A descriptive epidemiological analysis of 16 health and welfare conditions, recorded during routine ante- and post-mortem inspections in slaughterhouses across GB, was used to identify those conditions most likely to be affected by weather. Daily counts of ascites (a common metabolic disorder) and abnormal colour/fever (septicaemia/toxaemia: a systemic bacterial infection) were examined in relation to outdoor temperature throughout broilers’ lifespan by means of time-series regression; a statistical approach rarely utilised in animal welfare science. A distributed lag non-linear model defined the U-shaped relationship between daily mean temperature and day-to-day changes in the number of broilers found dead on arrival or dead in the lairage (DOA) at slaughter. This information was applied to UK climate projections (UKCP18) to estimate temperature-related death losses of market weight broilers in Central England during 2040…
author: Part, Cherie
language: eng
keywords: Animal welfare, broiler chicken, livestock production, weather, outdoor temperature, climate change, food security, statistical modelling, environmental epidemiology, ascites, dead on arrival, septicaemia
date published: 2021-7
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:55:51Z
provider: Queen's University Belfast
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Queen's University Belfast