Litter quality in broiler and turkey housing directly affects respiratory health, foot health, and behavioral welfare — with poor litter management causing preventable suffering for billions of birds annually.
Broiler and turkey chickens that spend their entire lives standing, sitting, and sleeping on ammonia-saturated litter experience chronic respiratory irritation and painful foot lesions. Severe pododermatitis involves ulceration that reaches underlying tissue, causing constant pain with every step. Eye inflammation from ammonia causes reduced vision and stress. The scale of this welfare problem — potentially affecting the majority of commercially raised poultry — is extraordinary. Most of these welfare harms are preventable through relatively straightforward litter management practices: appropriate stocking density, effective ventilation, litter amendment use, and removal or turning of caked litter. The economic costs of poor litter management (reduced growth, veterinary costs, condemned birds) make good litter management economically rational as well as welfare-improving.