Poultry welfare
Proper animal welfare involves providing the proper housing, management, nutrition, disease prevention and treatment, responsible care, humane handling and, when necessary, humane euthanasia. These factors allow for the most optimal and humane growing environment. The concept of animal welfare includes three elements: the bird’s normal biological functioning, its emotional state and its ability to express its natural behaviors. Improving animal welfare can be accomplished through offerings like poultry feed enrichment, which can reduce stress, thereby increasing performance, productivity and profitability. Animal welfare is currently a major requirement for intensive poultry production. Beak trimming, stocking density, free access to feed, heat stress, and air pollutants became important issues, which are regulated in several countries. Animal welfare is observed by watching how birds naturally behave and even by looking at mortality stemming from aggressive behaviors.
I. INTRODUCTION Free range layer hens deposit nutrients onto the range via their excreta. Over time, gradients of soil nutrients develop across the range with higher concentrations found closest to the shed and under shelters and trees (Wiedemann et al., 2018). Hens congregate underneath trees and shrubs seeking shade and shelter, but little is known about how well trees/shrubs handle the additional nutrient loads. Nitrogen and phosphorus are the two main plant nutrients whose...
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Gangrenous dermatitis (GD) is a serious bacterial disease affecting poultry. It generally is fatal, often within 24 hours. It sometimes seems to appear almost out of nowhere because suddenly you will have healthy birds and dead birds, but not many birds in between. While GD has been reported in commercial layers, turkeys, and broiler breeders, it usually occurs in fast-growing broilers between 4 and 8 weeks of age .
In recent years, there has been an increase of...
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January 25, 2027
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Introduction Coccidiosis is a parasitic infection caused by Eimeria spp and persistently affecting broiler chicken, causing high morbidity, impaired growth, and mortality [1]. Unlike many other protozoan parasites, Eimeria spp exclusively invades the intestinal epithelium showing high tissue specificity [2]. Eimeria (E.) maxima is characterized by producing the largest oocysts and male gamonts among the other species infecting chicken [3]. E. maxima particularly infects chickens at...
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Introduction Cognition encompasses the mental processes involved in perceiving, processing, storing, and acting on information from the environment (Shettleworth, 2001). This includes a wide range of cognitive skills such as sensory perception memory, learning, decision making, reasoning, and problem solving (Dukas, 2004). The cognitive abilities of chicken are already highly developed in early life, with research demonstrating that the cognitive abilities of chicks include...
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1. Introduction Toxoplasma gondii is a cosmopolitan zoonotic apicomplexan protozoan capable of infecting all warm-blooded animals [1–3]. Its life cycle centers on felids as the sole definitive hosts, which shed environmentally resistant oocysts in their feces, while intermediate hosts harbor tissue cysts primarily in muscle and neural tissue [4,5]. Toxoplasmosis represents a public health concern; human infection occurs predominantly through consumption of undercooked meat...
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The release of P into the environment is a target that must be achieved not only for economic and environmental reasons, but also to increase the sustainability of animal production. The impact of dietary Ca on P digestibility, and consequently the level of the inclusion of inorganic P sources in the feed, plays an important role by hindering the phytase to hydrolyse phytate-P (Sommerfeld et al., 2018). The aim of this trial was to investigate the impact of lowering the inclusion of...
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FIGAP 2026: The Scientific And Technological Exhibition Of The Livestock Industry
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Mohammad Afrouziyeh (University of Alberta / Poultry Innovation Partnership) shares his recommendations and insights on water quality, as well as a new tool to control it, during this Engormix interview....
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I. INTRODUCTION Poultry house moisture contributes to many of the issues that poultry farms experience. As moisture builds in the litter/bedding, microbial populations thrive, more ammonia is generated, and the incidence and severity of footpad dermatitis increases. Much of the moisture in the house comes from the birds themselves, so in order to control moisture, one must understand the current moisture loads in the house. For example, broilers grow faster and convert feed more...
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1. Introduction The anti-predator behavior of roosting on the elevated structure shown by the ancestor of the domestic fowl (jungle fowl) has been seen in domesticated avian species even after they were reared in the indoor housing system [1,2]. The avian species, including the domestic fowl, exhibit the tendon-locking phenomenon, which allows them to express behaviors such as perching with minimal muscular effort [3,4]. Using aerial (raised) perches is considered a priority for...
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In poultry production, the avian respiratory system is both a biological advantage and a management challenge. Birds breathe through a highly efficient system built on unidirectional airflow and multiple air sacs, allowing rapid oxygen exchange to support growth, activity, and...
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I. INTRODUCTION Resilience is defined as the ability to successfully cope and thrive when faced with environmental disturbance, adversity, and stress. Across an animal’s lifetime, they will be exposed to many stressors that require the individual to adapt and maintain internal homeostasis against external variability. For a laying hen, these stressors could include pathogens, vaccinations, extreme temperature variations, transfer from pullet to layer housing, and conspecific...
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I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, there has been a growing public interest in animal welfare in Australia (De Witte, K., 2009). Consumers expect continual and comprehensive improvements in poultry production (Li, Ren, Li, & Zeng, 2020). The health and product quality of poultry also is linked to their welfare. Healthy hens with better emotions tend to lay more eggs of higher quality (Eggs, 2023). The assessment of the welfare of poultry commonly complies with the Welfare Quality...
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Recent research indicates that smothering accounts for up to 16% of mortality in adult laying hens in Australian commercial free-range egg farms (Hemsworth et al., 2022). In addition, UK data indicates that piling (a precursor to smothering where hens press tightly together into dense packs) has implications not only for the risk of mortality due to smothering, but also may negatively impact egg production (Armstrong et al., 2023). Smothering research to date has been focused on identifying...
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Laying hens have a cyclic reproductive physiology that requires high dietary protein and energy levels for yolk and albumen formation in the early morning and high dietary Ca levels for shell and membrane formation in the afternoon/evening. Therefore, feeding one diet throughout each day may be problematic as there is excess Ca in the morning and excess protein/amino acids and energy in the afternoon/evening. To minimise excess nutrients, there is increasing interest in alternative...
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Adult chickens utilise external circadian cues to schedule their daily cycles. In other taxa, developing embryos can actively entrain the timing of life transitions to a circadian rhythm (Villamizar et al., 2013, Saunders, 2002), but we currently have a poor understanding of how circadian rhythms develop in meat chicken embryos. Commercial poultry are not exposed to diurnal light changes during incubation, removing the possible use of such cues for optimising hatch timing. Synchronising...
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Mycotoxins are known to decrease health and performance in poultry production. Their modes of action, such as reducing protein synthesis and promoting oxidative stress and apoptosis, lead to cell destruction and lower cell replacement, affecting several organs and tissues. When different stress factors collude, such as high temperatures and humidity, poor ventilation, high stocking density, and management events, the effects of in-feed mycotoxins can reach a higher level, which may...
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1. Introduction The performance and activities of male breeders (roosters) are critical for egg fertility and hatchability in commercial layer and broiler breeding houses [1,2]. In a study, researchers found positive correlations between rooster body weight and both the laying intensity of fertilized eggs and the hatchability percentage of chicks [2]. A review by Kingor [1] underscores the importance of how the physical conditions and management of roosters can directly impact...
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Cristabel Huerta, Brightness Consultant at HATO Lighting, shares how intelligent lighting systems can help reduce energy consumption while supporting animal welfare and improving farm efficiency. ...
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Cristabel Huerta, Brightness Consultant at HATO Lighting, explains how innovative lighting solutions can improve bird welfare, optimize farm conditions, and enhance overall poultry performance. ...
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