Effect of the conventional poultry litter replacement per plastic floor drilled on the performance of broiler chickens raised in thermal comfort

The poultry litter quality is of paramount importance to the success of productive activity, presenting fundamental importance in the initial phase of creation due to the thermal insulation and absorption of urate and feces throughout the production cycle. Due to excessive use, the materials used as poultry litter are increasingly scarce, and therefore more expensive, forcing producers to reuse this bed for several cycles, however, several studies show that the reuse of the bed can cause serious problems in terms of health and production rates. Based on the foregoing, we conducted an experiment to evaluate the productive response of broiler chickens raised in plastic perforated floor compared to conventional poultry litter (wood shaving). The experiment was conducted in two climate chambers, being used in a plastic perforated floor and other conventional poultry litter of wood shavings. The birds were housed in boxes, a total of 16 boxes per chamber, with an area of one square meter per Box, and 12 birds density, 8 boxes of males and 8 females boxes. Poultry were raised from 1 to 42 days with food and water ad libitum, it was made a weekly weighing of birds and feed leftovers being held, resulting in feed intake, weight gain and feed conversion. At the end of the cycle, it was determined meat production per area (kg.m^-2) and viability (%) treatments. significant difference was found (P <0.01) only between males and females for weight gain (3,14kg and 2,73kg for males and for females), feed intake (5,13kg and 4,70kg for males and for females ) and feed conversion (1.63 for males and 1.72 for females). Males had higher meat production (37,230kg.m^-2) than females (31.950 kg m^-2), with no significant difference between the studied floors (p> 0.05). There was no significant difference (p> 0.05) for viability. We conclude that the use of perforated plastic floor is something viable in the creation of broilers by the production point of view, requiring further studies in relation to such a system.