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Disorder of Water Balance01:29

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Water balance disorders are medical conditions that occur when there is a deviation from the body's water volume or osmolarity, disrupting normal homeostasis and leading todehydration, hypotonic hydration, hyperhydration, edema, or water intoxication.
Dehydration
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Dehydration indicators for broiler chickens at slaughter.

R F Vanderhasselt1, S Buijs, M Sprenger

  • 1Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research, Melle, Belgium.

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Researchers identified physiological indicators to measure thirst in broilers, crucial for animal welfare. Blood sodium and plasma osmolality can assess dehydration effects during transport and on farms.

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Area of Science:

  • Animal Welfare Science
  • Physiology
  • Poultry Science

Background:

  • Thirst is a critical welfare concern in broilers, yet reliable physiological indicators for dehydration are lacking.
  • Existing indicators do not adequately differentiate between on-farm dehydration and stress during catching and transport.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To identify reliable physiological indicators of thirst in broilers for integration into animal welfare assessments.
  • To differentiate dehydration levels occurring on-farm versus during the catching-to-slaughter interval.

Main Methods:

  • Experiment 1: Broilers subjected to varying durations of total water withdrawal (0-48h) or restricted access.
  • Experiment 2: Broilers subjected to 0-48h of water withdrawal, with measurements of plasma chloride, creatinine, hematocrit, sodium, and osmolality.
  • Evaluated drained blood content, body weight (BW), and skin turgor in Experiment 1.

Main Results:

  • Decreased drained blood content and BW observed after 36h of water deprivation.
  • Plasma chloride increased after 6h but did not correlate with longer deprivation.
  • Plasma creatinine and hematocrit showed complex changes, but creatinine levels differentiated longer deprivation.
  • Blood sodium and plasma osmolality steadily increased with water deprivation duration (0-24h).

Conclusions:

  • Blood sodium and plasma osmolality are promising indicators for assessing combined dehydration effects from farm to slaughter.
  • Plasma creatinine can help distinguish between short-term transport dehydration and longer-term on-farm water restriction.
  • These indicators could be incorporated into on-farm or at-slaughter welfare assessment schemes for broilers.