Re-use of chicken litter across broiler cycles – managing the food-borne pathogen risk

Abstract

Thus the objectives of this study can be broadly categorised as follows:-
 Evaluate current practices adopted (e.g. litter pile-up) prior to re-use of litter for subsequent chicken cycles
 To establish pathogen die-off that occurs during currently adopted methods of in-shed treatment of litter
 To establish simple physical parameters to monitor this pathogen reduction and create an understanding of such reduction strategies to aid in-shed management of re-use litter
 To carry out studies to assess the potential of the re-used litter (once spread) to support pathogens during a typical chicken production cycle.
 To provide background data for the development of a simple code of practice for an in-shed litter pile-up process