A breeding program for balanced improvement of performance and health in broilers.

To illustrate the consequences of including health related traits in a sustainable broiler breeding program, two scenarios were simulated using the SelAction program. In the first scenario (economic), selection was only for production traits and Gait Score (GS) and Heart Failure (HF) were ignored in the breeding goal. In the second scenario (sustainable), GS and HF as well as production traits were included in the breeding goal. Economic values of GS and HF were determined using desired-gain approach to obtain a zero response in GS and HF. The results indicate that, despite improved responses for production traits in the economic scenario, there was an unfavorable reduction in GS of about 0.13 points and an unfavorable increase in HF of about 0.025 points. In the sustainable scenario, the deterioration of GS and HF was stopped. In the economic scenario with zero economic values for GS and HF, the total monetary response was higher (0.104 euros) than sustainable scenario (0.097 euros). Due to negative correlations between health and production traits, increased emphasis on health traits in the sustainable scenario resulted in a reduction in the total monetary response. In conclusion to stop the increased incidence of diseases, health traits should be included in the breeding goal and assigned appropriate values.