A Contribution to the Hygiene of Deep Litter in the Chicken House

INTENSIVE poultry rearing on the floor requires definite technological procedures because the poultry are kept in the same environment during the entire process of production. Thus hens remain in the same houses from their 5th to the 15th or 17th month of age, i.e. for 10 to 12 months; chickens from their first day to the age of 5 months and broilers from the first day to the 63rd on the average. This relatively long housing of poultry—especially laying hens—in the same environment, and the considerable population number, makes the sanitary properties of the litter most important. The keeping of hens on the floor on deep litter, composed of different substances, requires proper information on the entire complex of biochemical decomposition of organic substance in the litter. Among the data in the literature the discussions by Smetnev et al. (1957 a, b), Parker et al. (1959), and other …