Hen housing and welfare Flashcards
Conventional housing systems
-process to eliminate all battery houses
-By 2036, all hens to be housed in enriched or non cage housing
-by 2025, need to have a plan in place
Why is the elimination happening?
1.Social responsibility
-freeing hens from cages
-animal welfare
- consumers demand cage free eggs based on their perception of bird welfare
**but this is not actually displayed in their purchasing history (will always pick cheapest, and then think about taste and safety)
Many different definition of welfares
- Balance of health, affective states, natural living
- What animals want (health, behaviour, etc.)
- State of an animal including its physical and mental health
5 Freedoms
- Freedom from hunger and thirst
- Freedom from discomfort
- Freedom from pain, injury, disease
- Freedom to express normal behaviour
5.Freedom from fear and distress
5 domains
- Nutrition
- Environment
- Health
- Behaviour
- Mental state
Enriched housing
Cage system, but larger
-grouped with multiple members
-scratch pads or dust boxes
-roost and nest boxes
-sometimes variable lighting to help stimulate more natural light
Enriched housing advantages
- Environmental control (separation from feces/air quality in cages)
- Small hen colony size (reduced hen aggression)
- Disease control
- No threat from predators
- Economics and Ergonomics
- Egg cleanliness
- Lower environmental impact
- Behavioural abilities (roots, more space, nest boxes, dust bathing, scratch pads)
Disadvantages of enriched housing
- Lack of space/facilities- prevents certain normal behaviour (eg. sometimes dust bathing, and exploration)
- More costly to build barns and therefore increases price of eggs
Free Run aviary systems
No access to outside, just free roaming indoors
-often multi-tiered system (litter flooring, nest boxes on one level, food and water on another)
Advantages to Free runs/aviary
- Varied physical environment to express normal behaviour
- Protection against predators
- Freedom to move within the hen house
4.Provision of nest boxes, perches, dust bathing facilities
- Improved bone strength
- Birds can escape aggression by moving within the house
Disadvantages of free run/aviary
- Feather pecking and cannibalism
- Management of manure more difficult (dust and ammonia)
- Broken bones
- High risk of parasitic disease and infections (contact with feces)
- Ergonomics (hard to do exams and find birds) and economics (eggs more expensive, and care more expensive)
- Floor eggs
Free range housing system
-Free range barn for indoor with “pot holes” where the birds can exit and freely be outside
Advantages to free range housing
- Freedom to move freely and express behaviour
- Opportunity to graze on vegetation and varied diet
- Opportunity to dust bathe in soil
- Improved bone strength
Disadvantages to free range
- Feather pecking and cannibalism
- risk of predators
- Disease risk due to access to droppings and contact with wild birds
- Adverse climate outside
- Increased risk of parasites (internal and external)
6.Cost of production (feed costs)
- Floor eggs
