Maxine Rice

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 ...

I. IntroductionEarly life experiences play an important role in the behavioural development of laying hens (Janczak and Riber 2015; Nicol 2015). Environmental differences in rearing systems have been shown to have an impact on behavioural problems such as feather pecking and cannibalism during adulthood (de Haas et al. 2014; Riber and Guzman 2017). In addition, fearfulness early in life has been s ...

‘Smothering’ in poultry occurs when birds mass together, often on top of each other, resulting in death from suffocation (Bright and Johnson, 2011). The small number of reports documenting the incidence of smothering indicate that it accounts for a substantial proportion of overall mortality in free range layer flocks (Barrett et al., 2014; Bright and Johnson, 2011).In 2019 Australian ...