Validation of a simple binary scoring system for assessment of welfare measures of 10-day-old commercial broilers and their correlation with environmental parameters.

Background: A simple binary scoring system (SBSS) was developed and used to assess the welfare measures of commercial broiler chickens in South Korea. We also correlated welfare measures with environmental parameters of broiler house. Our measures of welfare included lameness, hock burn (HB) and foot pad dermatitis (FPD), whilst environmental parameters included air temperature, relative humidity, air speed, light intensity, air quality (in particular carbon dioxide (CO2) and ammonia (NH3) concentrations) and airborne microbes.