The purpose of this article is to explore the effects of changes to poultry housing and/or management practices on poultry behaviour and welfare, with the intention of identifying best practices.
The Five Freedoms attempt to ensure that animals have a good quality of life. The provision (or not) of these freedoms is highly influenced by the type of housing and/or management practices that animals’ experience. One criterion is that animals should enjoy freedom from hunger and thirst. Although some degree of hunger underlies normal feeding behaviour, there is much uncertainty about what are, from an animal welfare perspective, acceptable degrees of hunger. All domestic fowl parent stock that are bred for meat are subjected to food restriction in order to prevent excessive weight gain, which can affect their fertility, health and welfare. However, food restriction may in itself affect bird welfare if these animals experience excessive hunger. Food restriction can be achieved either by limiting the amount of food on offer (quantitative restriction) or by including ingredients that limit the amount of food an animal either can, or is willing to, eat (qualitative restriction). The question of how the degree of hunger experienced by animals in any system relates to the severity of food restriction, and whether or not quantitative and qualitative restriction differ in this respect, is not known. The expected advancement from pursuing this research is that we will be able to identify the biological basis of animal hunger, and consequently how to recognise hunger in meat bird parent stock.
In addition to issues of hunger, other management practices such as beak trimming, space allowances, and the provision of furniture (‘perch’ space for laying hens) remain controversial. Some controversial practices are being banned. For example beak trimming (which causes neuroma formation in the beak), is being banned by the European Commission from 01 Jan 2011. There is serious concern that the recommendation that laying hens be selected for expressing less injurious pecking will not have materialised before this deadline. The end result may be greater welfare insults. Novel alternatives to conventional ‘mutilations’ (such as infra red beak treatment instead of beak trimming), or the consequences of doing nothing, have received minimal attention, and may require examination with regards to their effects on poultry behaviour and welfare. In other cases, various interpretations of laws devised to improve bird welfare may in fact result in the opposite. Thus those that interpret the requirement for 15 cm perch space per laying hen by using raised slats may not be increasing bone strength or bird comfort through perching as intended. On the other hand, where aerial perches are used, hens appear to be showing greater numbers of bone fractures which are likely to be painful. Research to find the optimal housing and management conditions for poultry that enhance behaviour while maintaining or improving their welfare is needed.
Our work will help provide the Government with biologically based evidence regarding the best ways in which to keep poultry in order to ensure that their needs are met. The results may contribute to legislation, codes of practice and guidance for on-farm welfare assessments by the State Veterinary Service. Much of the work will be placed in the public domain, through project reports, publications in peer-reviewed journals, and through presentations at conferences and to the poultry industries. The methods proposed are established techniques and likely to yield meaningful results. Where methods are novel (such as the infra red beak treatment), we will seek guidance from those who are using the technique within the industry or in other research organisations.
Most of the work related to his programme will not fall under the auspices of the Act, however some aspects require that birds be subjected to licensable procedures such as food/water restriction and blood sampling. These types of procedures are necessary in order to gather objective data on how some types of housing and/or management practices are perceived by poultry (i.e. as stressful, for example).
Experiments will be conducted in facilities in which the environment, housing, and/or management practices are manipulated. Data will be collected through one or more of the following methods or similar: a) behavioural observations (usually scan sample recording in real time, or scan or continuous recording of behaviour from video tapes); b) measuring feeding motivation, possibly after periods of food deprivation; c) feeding birds diets manipulated either qualitatively, quantitatively, or both; c) taking blood samples to assess physiological indices of stress; d) weighing birds at regular intervals; e) assessing feather, foot, and/or comb damage. All experiments will be assessed by an approved Animal Experiments Committee. This Committee, which is made up of scientists, a statistician, and a ‘non-animal’ person, helps to ensure that no unethical practices are carried out, and that the 3 R’s are adhered to. All experimental designs are discussed with and approved by a statistician to help ensure the relevance of the results while using the minimum number of animals.
Experimental designs will usually be a comparison of several treatments within one or two factors, and will typically examine differences in behaviour and physiological indices of stress via blood sampling. There is no possible substitute for animals in investigations in which housing/management systems affect their welfare. Results will provide information on what are the preferable methods for housing and/or management poultry and will be judged satisfactory based on their acceptability in the reports to the relevant funding bodies, and through peer review.
Each protocol proposed here requires the use of conscious poultry, in order to provide informed data on how housing/management practices affect their well-being. With food and/or water restriction, neither food nor water will be restricted to a level below maintenance, and will not cause lasting harm. Guidelines are in place in the relevant protocols to prevent body weight falling below an acceptable level. Blood sampling will cause temporary discomfort but will not cause lasting pain, distress or harm. The type of poultry used (for example, laying hen, broiler or turkey) will depend on the goal of the experiment being undertaken, i.e. to identify best housing/management practices in hens, broilers or turkeys.
