Dr. Greg Archer

Drinking behavior in poultry develops within the first couple days of life. When an open water source is provided, birds stick their beak roughly 10 mm into the water, use a scooping motion to collect water in their beak, extend their neck in a vertical position, and use gravity to transport water down their esophagus to their crop. While this sequence is the natural drinking behavior for birds, t ...

Damaging behaviors in poultry include feather pecking, vent pecking, and toe pecking. While feather and vent pecking are well-known welfare problems in poultry that have received significant attention from researchers and farmers, toe pecking remains relatively unknown. Therefore, this article aims to shed light on toe pecking.Toe pecking (TP) occurs when a laying hen pecks at her toes or the toes ...

In cage-free housing, multi-tiered aviary structures are often used (pictured above), where key resources (i.e., feed, water, nests, perches) are available on elevated platforms called tiers, and litter substrate is available on the ground floor for dustbathing and foraging. Hens move vertically and horizontally across the elevated structures to access resources, which requires the hens to have sk ...

Bio-security is the cheapest, most effective means of disease prevention and control available.  Proper bio-security will help to ensure the overall health and welfare of your flock.What is “Bio-security”?Simply put it is protecting your birds from disease by minimizing their exposure to vectors or fomites.What is a vector or a fomite?A vector is something living and a fomite is s ...

Stocking density is a critical factor to consider for optimum welfare of commercial broilers    Stocking density is typically defined in terms of the number of birds per unit area or the amount of space provided on per bird basis. In commercial production, stocking density of a broiler flock is calculated based on target market weight by accounting for the number of chicks placed in ...