Factors that Influence the Production, Environment, and Welfare of Broiler Chicken: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT The objective of the present study was to characterize the scientific production regarding the factors that influence broiler chicken production, and that were published from 2000 to 2015 in journals indexed in the database of Google Scholar, Scielo, and ScienceDirect. The research was done in the Thermal Comfort Laboratory at FEAGRI- UNICAMP, and the concept of the systematic review was applied. The research criterion was initially defined (the keywords) aiming to identify and evaluate the variables that describe the experimental characteristics and the animals. The primary keywords identified were: broiler chicken from commercial strains, broiler production, rearing conditions, thermal environment, air quality, acoustic environment, light intensity, management, and heat stress. Those were the key words searched in the database of the online libraries. The selected articles were registered into an electronic spreadsheet with the title, the name of the authors, year of publication, language, the journal where it was published, the keyword, the period when the research was done, source/ database, and the abstract. A total of 167 articles were selected, and only 34 were added to the review. The use of the systematic review of the literature allowed identifying the main variables that positively influence the broiler performance, such as the temperature near the thermal comfort, the use of roof lining, besides the use of adiabatic cooling and cast bricks in the laterals. The presence of positive ventilation, as well as the use of yellow curtains and constant lighting, has also influenced a better performance to broilers