Evaluating broiler growth and mortality in chicks with minor navel conditions at hatching

As commercial hatcheries become more automated, there are fewer opportunities for chicks with minor unhealed navel conditions to be identified and removed before being shipped to farms. An experiment was undertaken to evaluate the effect of common navel conditions occurring at hatching on subsequent broiler performance. In each of 2 trials, chicks with normal navels and minor navel conditions (navel button or leaky navel) were collected from a commercial hatchery on the day of hatch. Chicks were feather sexed and placed in floor pens. Individual BW and mortality were recorded weekly until shipping at 41 d of age. As expected, male broilers had heavier BW at 41 d than females. Broilers with navel buttons and leaky navels had lower 41-d BW than those that had normal navels at hatching. Birds with navel buttons also had higher mortality over the entire production period than birds with leaky or normal navels. The results of this research clearly show that when chicks have even minor navel conditions at hatching, the end result is a reduction in broiler production efficiency.