Cleanliness of broilers when they arrive at poultry processing plants

An eight-point photographic scale from 1 (very clean) to 8 (very dirty) was used to assess the cleanliness of the plumage of 69,783 live broiler chickens delivered in 54 loads to three processing plants which were each visited in spring, summer and winter. There were considerable variations between the plants and between the visits, but most birds were given scores of 6 or 7. The average plant scores were 6.07, 6.56 and 6.84, which were associated with frequencies of birds with scores of 7 or more of approximately 38, 56 and 73 per cent. There was some indication that longer feed-withdrawal times of up to 10 hours were associated with dirtier birds.