Understanding The Perceptions and Knowledge of Laying Hen Welfare: Industry and Community Stakeholders Focus Groups

Decisions that impact hen welfare may be influenced by the expectations of the community, such as development of regulations (Coleman et al., 2018). Although some reaserch has been conducted on Australian consumer attitudes (Bray and Ankeny, 2017), wider community perceptions (for example, vegans) towards laying hen welfare remain largely unknown.

This research was approved by the University of New England’s Human research ethics committee (HE18-235). Focus groups of industry stakeholders (ISG) and community stakeholders (CSG), were held to establish an understanding of Australian poultry stakeholder knowledge of, and perceptions towards, hen housing and welfare. The CSG was held in Tamworth, NSW, (n = 7; 6 female, 1 male). The ISG was held in Brisbane, QLD (n = 6; 2 female, 4 male). Each focus group included a mixture of open- and closed-ended questions in a semi-structured discussion. Focus groups were audio recorded and later transcribed and analysed. Participants were asked what is important for hen welfare; a word count was performed (excluding irrelevant words such as ‘the’, ‘I’) and key words were grouped into themes (for example, ‘disease’ and ‘mortality’ were grouped into the theme ‘health’) and are presented as a percentage of the total words used for each group.

When asked what is important for hen welfare, ISG utilized more frequently than the CSG terms specific to health (ISG 40.0%, CSG 22.2%) and biological needs (ISG 26.7%, CSG 7.4%), but did not mention housing (ISG 0%, CSG 33.3%), behaviour (ISG 0%, CSG 12.9%), or psychological needs (ISG 0%, CSG 5.5%).

Discussions with the CSG highlighted misconceptions within the community regarding the egg industry, including the belief that beak trimming is illegal and that hens are housed under 24 light schedules to increase production. Furthermore, there was a lack of understanding of the scale of egg production in Australia evident by CSG discussion about rehoming spent hens and manual collection of eggs. Stakeholder groups were asked if they would support furnished cage housing systems (FCHS). No CSG members were aware of FCHS. However, after a briefing of the nature of the system, 100% of the CSG indicated they would support, and believed the rest of the community would support, a FCHS. However, 100% of ISG believed the adoption of FCHS is unlikely. The ISG believes that Australian consumers who do not support cage housing systems will similarly not support FCHS due to the notion that “a cage is a cage”.

The data gathered from these focus groups highlight differences between the industry and community stakeholders’ perceptions toward hen welfare. Furthermore, they highlight knowledge deficits and the potential impact of language on perceptions of hen welfare within the Australian community. This study will inform a national survey to investigate the impact of language during education on hen welfare.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This project was partly funded by Poultry Hub Australia.