*2.4. Transportation Coops*

Four broiler chicken transportation coops (Bright Coop, Inc., Nacogdoches, TX, USA) were obtained from a local commercial broiler integrator for experimental purposes. Each coop represented an experimental unit/treatment and had ten holding compartments in a configuration of two columns with five rows. During experiments, ten pre-treatment and ten post-treatment samples were taken from each transportation coop.

The field study used three transportation coops containing market-age broilers that had recently defecated in the coops during transport to the processing plant and had probably never been cleaned.
