[Pathological and histopathological findings in the joints of fattening turkeys].

This paper reports on pathological and histopathological findings in the joints of male turkeys (B.U.T. Big 6) reared in two different housing systems. Pathological investigations were conducted on all animals which died between the 6th week of life and the end of fattening (585 birds, 1170 hip, knee and intertarsal joints) from four fattening periods with 3000 birds each. This study included 297 birds kept in a conventional housing system (barn 2) with a stocking density of 2.8 birds/m2, and 288 birds from a barn (1) from which the animals had access to an outdoor scratching area (stocking density 2.5 birds/m2). In all, 157 (26.5%) of the 585 fallen turkeys (barn 1:93; barn 2:70) showed at least one pathological joint alteration. and there were macroscopically detectable changes in 274 (7.8%) of the 3510 investigated joints: 152 (7.8%) of the 1728 joints from barn 1, and 122 (8.8%) of the 1782 from barn 2. In both housing systems the most frequent pathological alterations were in the intertarsal joint affecting 16% (188) of these 1170 joints (barn 1:106; barn 2:82); next most frequent were changes in the knee joint with 4.5% (53) of the 1170 joints affected (barn 1:26; barn 2:27). In both barns, synovial alterations occurred predominantly in the intertarsal and the knee joints. Bacteriological investigation of altered synovial fluids (83) most frequently showed an infection with Staphylococcus spp. (44) and E. coli (15). Macroscopic investigation showed alterations in 31 (2.7%) of the 1170 hip joints (barn 1:19; barn 2:12); 2% (22) of these showed cartilage degenerations of the femoral head (barn 1:15; barn 2:7). Histological investigation of these cartilage lesions showed that they were predominantly (70%) due to osteochondrosis with complete epiphyseolysis affecting 16 femoral heads (barn 1:10; barn 2:6). Partial epiphysiolysis was found in 24% (5) of the femoral heads (barn 1:4; barn 2:1). Furthermore, 43% (9) of the 22 femoral heads with cartilage degeneration also had osteomyelitis and osteochondritis, as well (barn 1:6; barn 2:3). Histological investigation of the 104 femoral heads with no macroscopic findings (barn 1:56; barn 2:48), revealed osteochondrosis in 11 cases (10.6%) (barn 1:6; barn 2:5). Osteomyelitis and osteochondritis were found in 17 (16.3%) of these femoral heads (barn 1:9; barn 2:8). There were no significant (p < 0.05) differences between the two housing systems in the incidence and frequency of joint alterations. It is to be assumed that these joint alterations were the cause of acute, chronic pain.