Determining the Effective Management Factors on Mortality Rate in Broiler Farms (Case Study: Ramyan and Azadshahr Cities)

In order to investigate the management factors affecting the mortality rate in broiler farms in Ramyan and Azadshahr cities in Golestan Province, Iran, the necessary information was collected in form of questionnaire from 65 active broiler farms between years 2018 to 2019 breeding period. To compare the means of studied traits (first week mortality and whole breeding period mortality) at different levels of management factors GLM procedure of SAS software was used. The results showed that the mortality rate in broiler farms in Ramyan was lower than Azadshahr city (p<0.05). Large hall area, high density of chickens and times of breeding per year increased mortality rate. The distance of the broiler farm from the nearest city, village and other poultry farms did not affect the mortality rate. Also, chick strain, breeding season, manager age and experience had no significant effect on mortality rate. Farms that their managers had higher educational level experienced lower mortality (p<0.05). The presence of any kind of disease significantly increased the mortality rate (p<0.05). Diet type (mash or pellets) had no significant effect on mortality but the effect of feed preparation source on mortality was significant and farms that prepared food from the factory had lower mortality rate (p<0.05). Generally, the results of this study showed that chicken density, farm area, breeding frequency during a year, manager educational level and disease are the most important managerial factors affecting mortality rate and should be considered to increase the survival of chicks.