Peta Taylor

Smothering is a form of mortality which results from groups of hens pressing together in such a way that some hens are killed presumably due to suffocation. A recent Australian epidemiological study reported that smothering accounted for 11% of mortality across 3 separate organisations and in two separate climate zones in Australia (Hemsworth et al., 2022). Previous surveys of producers in the UK ...

Quantification of range use in commercial meat chicken flocks is desirable so that farmers can objectively assess meaningful range access, including number of chickens using the range and how far chickens roam from the shed. Currently there is no cost-effective technology for quantifying range use in commercial conditions, and farm staff perform assessments based on visual inspection. A proof-of-c ...

There is some evidence that commercial meat chickens prefer to access the range through ‘favoured’ pop-holes (Taylor et al., 2017); however what makes pop-holes attractive or aversive is unknown. Therefore, we aimed to i) determine the most aversive stimuli associated with pop-holes and ii) identify the most effective artificial structure to minimise aversion.We hypothesised that the s ...

It is widely accepted that the absence of suffering no longer defines animal welfare and that positive affective experiences are important (Mellor 2015). However, there are few valid and reliable tools available to comprehensively assess positive affective states of hens, particularly practically on farm. Pharmacological interventions that disrupt specific neural pathways have been shown to be a u ...

1. IntroductionIn free-range and aviary housing systems, individual hen behavior can vary significantly, such that, some hens rarely access the outdoors while others utilize the range regularly [1–4]. Free-range and aviary housing systems provide hens with horizontal and vertical space, allowing for various choices, opportunities, and interactions; including dust bathing, sunbathing, perchin ...