Terrence O’Keefe: Hello and welcome to the future of poultry Podcast Series. My name is Terence O'Keefe, and I'm the Content Director at WATT Global Media, and I'll be your host. I attended the Poultry and Welfare Sustainability Summit, which is cohosted by the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Poultry and Eggs (US-RSPE) and the International Poultry Welfare Alliance (IPWA). On the first day of the summit, the University of Georgia's Poultry Science Department hosted attendees for a field trip to the department's new building in Athens, Georgia. One of the presentations that day was a demonstration of a system for evaluating broiler carcasses called the Perfect Carcass Tool. Dr Paco Fernandez is a veterinarian who works for Zinpro, and he gave the demonstration. Dr. Fernandez has been kind enough to join us today to explain how the tool can be used to help integrators determine the source of defects and work on improving the welfare of the birds and bottom-line performance. Welcome Paco, and thanks for joining us today.
Paco Fernandez: Thank you very much,
O’Keefe: Paco. I used to work in a turkey plant that sold a lot of graded products, and we used a system for evaluating carcasses while they were still on the picking line to help us determine where we thought injuries took place based on the color of the bruises, or what a broken wing looked like. But the perfect carcass tool goes a lot deeper than that. Could you talk to us about the demonstration you gave and what the types of things that you're looking for?
Fernandez: This session was including the connection of our program with the welfare systems, because it was all organized by the International Poultry Welfare Alliance. In fact, what we do is the first time we visit an integration, we go to the end of the chain, not to the beginning, and check the carcasses in the processing plant. We try to determine, how was the life of these birds going as far back as the hatchery, so we can identify problems that happened during the processing, the transition from the farm to the slaughterhouse, problems at the farm level and even in the incubation period.
We call this a forensic approach. We try to determine in each plant which are the main priorities, which are the costs inherent to these priorities and what are the reasons causing these problems? And we are considering all internal and external lesions, but we also take in consideration the fasting period and the last 24 hours of life of the chicken, which are the most stressful of them all. Once we have identified the reasons and the priorities, we find out in which part of the process they happen, and we try to dig in, go into these specific points of the process to see how we can minimize the problems and reduce the cost.
We set up action plans that we can follow up to see after three or four months if we are going in the right direction or not, and if not, we can take corrective actions in these areas. Obviously, our interest is to show the activity of our micro mineral complexes. We (Zinpro) work with complexes of zinc, copper, manganese, iron, selenium and chromium. And we know that our micro minerals are much more bioavailable than the rest of the sources, and by being more bioavailable, that means that they have more powerful effects. And the best way to measure these effects is going to the processing plant. This was, in principle, the main reason why we were interested in going to the processing plant. Also, some of our customers told us that everything we could do to help them at the slaughterhouse level was going to be highly beneficial, because in many cases, they live a little bit isolated from the rest of the world, and they don't even know if they are doing better or worse. This is what the program is all about.
O’Keefe: I was really impressed when you were doing what I think of as a post mortem of the carcass, except that these were healthy birds that came into the plant alive and were, you know, humanely slaughtered. But then I was surprised at some of the internal defects that were in the birds, particularly a lot of femoral head necrosis. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Fernandez: For many people, when we explain to them what we do, they say we already have video camera systems. We already are doing something doing something in the plant. But the problem is that these video camera systems do not identify the most important problems, which are the internal lesions. And when I talk about internal lesions, I'm referring to the myopathies such as spaghetti meat, wooden breast, white striping, green muscle, but also to one obvious problem on the farm, which is lameness. And lameness is manifested in lesions that have to do with the BCO, which stands for bacterial chondronecrosis with osteomyelitis, which is usually known as femoral head necrosis. But it doesn't only happen at the femoral level, it also happens in the tibia and even in one of the thoracic vertebrae.
BCO is the reason for 60% of the lameness in the world in boilers, but also affects the turkeys and other avian species. For this problem to happen, we need two factors. The first factor is stress that will favor the translocation of bacteria from the intestinal lumen and from the respiratory tract. During these stressful periods, the bacteria will be able to go through the epithelial barrier and into the blood, and from the blood, they will find a way to the long bones, where they will induce an inflammatory reaction that will end up in the BCO clinical signs, which is basically lameness. The second factor in causing BCO is mechanical pressure, and it happens at epiphysis level. In the long bones, there are weak points due to the interconnection of blood vessels and connective tissue, and that makes these surfaces a little bit weak. When the animal gets heavy enough after day 35 for example, they develop a big breast, especially in the new broiler genetics. When they develop a big breast, this causes mechanical pressure on these long bone joints. Then we will have this inflammatory reaction that will start by the formation of micro fractures, and these micro fractures will then be colonized by bacteria coming from the blood. In the lesions, we can isolate bacteria that are coming from the intestine, such as Enterococcus cecorum, even E. coli, even Salmonella, but also some bacteria typically coming from the respiratory tract, like, for example, Staphylococcus aureus or even Streptococcus anatis, among others. And usually there is not a single type of bacteria, but many different strains living happily together, okay, and they are over there a little bit isolated from the immune system, and the antibiotic treatments are not easily reaching them, so this is a perfect place to develop an inflammatory reaction.
O’Keefe: I find this whole approach fascinating, because, as I said, I'm used to a system where we're looking at external lesions, and that did help us track down issues. This catching crew maybe was a little rougher than the other crews, or we had a problem with the stunner when the shift started, because the birds were cold when they came in. Stunning and the picking didn't quite work the way we normally would expect when birds were cold, and we got a lot of benefit from that type of the system. But your system really fascinating. When you're collecting information on what's going on inside the bird throughout its life, it allows you to try and take that data and go back in other parts of the chain. Can you give us some examples of what your clients have been able to do with some of this data?
Fernandez: Of course, the first point is to identify if this problem is happening premortem or postmortem. And for example, we are talking about bruises and hematomas. You must pay attention to the extension of the hematoma, because if the heart was pumping so the animal was alive, is going to be larger. We have to pay attention to the color, because if it's very fresh, it's going to be pinkish. But then it starts getting darker and bluish. Finally, it gets green after two days, and after three four days, it is transformed into yellowish. And finally, it can come back to normality, if we would give the bird time enough to resolve the problem. But also we have to pay attention to the clotting. If there is clotting, it's a good idea to cut and to see what is inside. Then we can estimate if this lesion coming from the farm or the plant. Clotting in the birds takes about one hour to happen. Clotting is much slower than in humans. Humans, after one to five minutes, you get the clotting, the coagulation and the wound is closed. But in chicken, it takes longer. The reason that thromboplastin, which is the protein that starts this process, is not in the blood serum, but is in the tissues. It takes a little bit longer to release this thromboplastin to start the process. By checking the extension, the color and the clotting, we can determine if the problem is coming from the farm, from the transition or from the plant, and therefore the next point is okay in which exact point is this happening? And then we must look to go and look for that. This is just for example, talking about the bruises. But the process will tell us a lot of things about the timing of the lesion.
If we talk about myopathies, for example, there is a very nasty myopathy called green muscle or deep pectoral myopathy, if you prefer. If you see the tender of the chicken in the breast, the pectoralis minor, which is greenish, is not the normal color, but it's completely green. This is happening at least two or three days before the death and is typical in these farms that are conducting thinning. And this is very common in Europe, for example. And this happens because when the animals are flopping, this muscle doesn't have space to expand because it's constrained between the sternum and the pectoralis major, and therefore there is a hypoxic development that ends up with the necrotic tissue that becomes green after two or three days. This is how we can determine where and when and how the problems happen. These are just two examples. Of course, if you see BCO that we were talking about before you can determine that there was a certain level of lameness on the farm. Usually, we can differentiate the lesions between mild and severe. If the lesions of femoral head necrosis, for example, are severe, I estimate that about half of them will transform into lame animals in the farm. So, if we have 8% incidence of severe BCO in the flock, I could probably tell to the veterinarians, “Are you having problems of lameness on the farm?” And I suppose you have about 3-4% of the birds lame. Is that right or not, and usually they can confirm or not, and if they are not confirming, then I have to try to understand why this is happening. Okay, so it's a kind of detective activity sometimes, but it makes all that much more interesting. I really learn.
Every time I do an inspection and evaluation, I learn something new. I can tell you if the scalding temperature was very high or very cold. I can tell you if the pressures of the pluckers, or the pickers as you say in the U.S., was too hard or not. I can even tell you if the hatchery was overcooking the embryos or not. I can tell you if there were Enterococcus problems in the hatchery or not. I can say a lot of things about the previous life of the birds even reaching back to the hatchery. I can tell you if I if I see, for example, a very high level of BCO, I can almost guarantee you that these birds were on a non-antibiotic diet, because in these countries in which, for example, still is allowed, the utilization of antibiotic growth promoters, then I see half the level of BCO than I see in the countries that are antibiotic free.
These are just a few examples. I could go on and on with different lesions, but this is basically how we work.
O’Keefe: It's fascinating hearing you describe the ability to take this snapshot, so to speak, when you do the postmortem on the carcass and relate that to the life of the bird. Because an idea I get in my head after that is, this could be a measure of, here's the welfare of the birds coming through your system, you know, because a lot of times, we've talked about the potential for cameras on farms and other measurements on farms for welfare. But there's a challenge, because we have so many houses and so many farms. But if you could do that kind of evaluation per flock in the processing plant, then suddenly it sounds like it would be possible to have a report on each flock that comes in.
Fernandez: Absolutely, I can tell you that checking the welfare issues at the plant has many, many advantages, just to mention a few ones. First, it is faster than doing it in the farm. Second, it is more reliable. The carcasses don't lie. They tell you the truth, if you know how to interpret what they see. The third point is that when you conduct this exercise, you are not stressing the birds. They are not alive. There is no risk of infection. You don't have to go to the farms. Imagine if you go to a farm to check welfare and just five or seven days after there is an outbreak of avian influenza, for example. That would not be nice to you. Okay? And finally, we are not missing the most stressful period of the life of the bird, which is the last 12 hours since the animals are harvested at the farm level, until they are loaded into the truck, transported to the plant, and waiting shackling until they are stunned, this is the most stressful period for many reasons. Including the fact that they don't have any more access to the feed or the water, and usually in the welfare system that we do at the farm level, we are not taking into account this stressful period. These are several of the reasons why I consider that welfare should be better evaluated even at the processing plant level.
O’Keefe: One other advantage that we haven't really talked about yet is that, for companies participating using this system. They're submitting their data anonymously, and then they can see how they compare with other complexes. Is that correct?
Fernandez: Yeah, absolutely. We started this program about 10 years ago, and now we have data coming from 39 different countries and more than 200 different companies. We have data coming from all types of production of broilers. We have data with the kosher system from Israel, we have data from the halal without stunning that is conducted, for example, in Saudi Arabia. In the Gulf states, we have data from Halal with stunning which is what most of the Arab countries are doing, Morocco, Egypt, et cetera. We have data with stunning by gas. We have data with stunning with electricity. And inside electricity systems, we can differentiate the European method in which we have by law to kill the birds with electrocution, and the American system in which we use low voltage and high frequency. By doing that, we are causing much less problems than with the European system. We can compare them, and I can tell you which are the predicted lesions that we are going to see in each one of these different stunning systems, for example. And the just as I am talking about stunners, I can the same with different scalding systems, different types of pluckers, different types of chillers. Every region (of the world) is doing different things, but the good thing, or the positive thing for us, is that most of the world is using the same two genetics. So, the problems are most of the time, are very similar. The only thing that changes is the frequency and the intensity of the problems due to different equipment, different types of stunning, or even different weights, because the weight of the birds when they are sacrificed is completely different. You can have small birds, for example, in Saudi Arabia, 1.5-1.6 kilograms body weight. And you can find in the U.S. big males weighing 4.5 kilograms, on average, that means that some of them are more than five kilograms. So, it's completely different types of lesions that you will find in small birds versus big birds. And we can go deeper than that by telling you that males and females behave completely different.
It was interesting because I had a customer during my stay in the U.S. that asked me if the females had more fractures, for example, than the males. But to be honest, at the time, I hadn't paid attention to that. But the truth is that after digging into the literature and in the in the numbers that we have, we found out that is true. The females, for example, have more fractures than the males because they have poorer skeleton robustness. They have more difficulties to produce collagen and to have the right organic matrix, but also, they have a lower level of mineralization of the bones. So even at the same age, they are more prone to have fractures than the male. These are just specific examples.
O’Keefe: Interesting on the males and females. Now, was this data that you're referring to from complexes where they raise the sexes separately, or were the males and females in the same house? But you can tell which were the males and which were the females, because you're doing the posting.
Fernandez: Usually it is relatively easy to differentiate the male and a female, because, okay, in the male, you can see the testes is and the amount of fat is different. The female has more fat. The size of the birds is completely different as well. Even the diameter of the shanks in the feet are different. But if you ask me about the future, I think that the future will be sexing, and there are many reasons for that. The main reason is that the lack of uniformity currently is one of the main nightmares of the fully automated processing plants, because if you have males and females together, and the female is 1/3 smaller than the males, the evisceration will be not as well-regulated, the scalding temperature will not affect the same the animals will be not exactly the same stun, either with electricity or with gas, I don't care. Everything will be different, and you are using the same equipment and the same procedures of the equipment to both sexes, and this is not right. You will have problems of quality of the carcasses because of this. The future is sexing. By sexing you can avoid the thinning, and the thinning is a big problem of stress for the birds in the first place. But this also is an excellent opportunity for Campylobacter, for example, to grow and to become more of a problem in the slaughterhouse. Even the nutrition for the males and the females should be completely different. Just I have given the example of the fractures before, but this is just one of the reasons for that.
O’Keefe: We had a panel discussion at the Chicken Marketing Summit where we talked about the future of processing, and one of the things that our panelists were really excited about was the opportunity for sexing all broilers at the plant and raising the males and females differently, because they thought that that was going to be just a huge step forward for automation in the plant.
Fernandez: I fully agree on that.
O’Keefe: We've heard a lot of good things about what an integrator can learn from implementing the Perfect Carcass Tool. I really do appreciate you joining us today, Paco, I know you took time out of your busy schedule. You're traveling around the world right now, and thanks a lot for joining us, Paco. I'd also like to thank everyone in the audience for joining us for this episode of the Future of Poultry Podcast series. Thanks. Goodbye.
