The aim of this chapter is to appraise the causes and consequences of leg problems in broilers and to evaluate approaches that may reduce their incidence and impact, thereby improving broiler welfare and the sustainability of the chicken meat sector.
Introduction
Chicken meat is one of the most commonly consumed animal foods across the globe (Mottet and Tempio, 2017). More than 90% of chicken meat is produced in specialised conventional systems where broilers are housed on litter bedding with mechanised provision of water and age-related formulated feed. Under these conditions modern meat chickens or broilers have a high growth rate, reaching slaughter weight of 2.3 kg by 35 days of age and consuming approximately 3.2 kg feed (Anon, 2024b), achieving a feed conversion ratio (FCR) of approximately 1.39 (Anon, 2022).