By Bruce Stewart-Brown, DVM, DACPV
Chief Science Officer, Perdue Farms

A broiler house today has been generally designed around clean and available feed and water, temperature control and air quality, resulting in optimal feed conversion and livability, or “performance.” Modern broiler houses are great at providing these things.

However, over the past decade, the concept of creating enriched environments for broilers has gained traction.

Environmental enrichment is associated with encouraging normal chicken activity by introducing complexity within the chicken house environment. This complexity encourages chickens to engage in activities that reflect their innate behaviors, such as sparring, pecking, worm running, hiding, perching (or finding an elevated position) and dustbathing.

Environmental enrichment examples

There are many approaches to environmental enrichment for broiler chickens:

• Elevated perches: Providing bales of hay/straw, ramps, tables/platforms, perches and other structures encourages climbing and resting.
• Hiding spaces: Using bales of hay/straw, boxes and buckets/drums creates areas for chickens to conceal themselves.
• Pecking opportunities: Hanging baskets of hay/straw/cabbage and interesting objects facilitates pecking or interaction.

I would also suggest that light, space and outdoor access can significantly boost activity levels and exploratory behaviors among chickens.

Reasons to use enrichments

If a producer has followed or suggested that their animal-welfare/animal-care program be based on The Five Freedoms,¹ developed by Britain’s Farm Animal Council in 1965, or The Five Domains,² formulated in 1994, I would assume they are focused on enriched environments.

These animal-welfare standards provide direction and guidance for how we thoughtfully care for animals — in our case, food animals. They also discuss areas associated with encouraging normal behavior and even an animal’s mental state. Enriched environments are likely needed to move forward in these areas.

Additionally, some producers may be required to include environmental enrichments as part of animal-welfare guidelines that one of their customers (or their brand) has requested. Global Animal Partnership and Certified Humane are just a few certification programs that require approaches to environmental enrichment.

Producers may also recognize that there is a health or performance benefit to an enriched environment. For example, environmental enrichment can foster better leg health, subsequently leading to better livability or better litter quality. In addition, as a result of improved litter quality, you could see an improvement in air quality, footpad health and improved paw grade.

In the end, producers are often looking for enrichments that might provide multiple benefits. An enrichment that is beneficial to welfare could also result in improved health and food safety. When these enrichments are recognized and implemented, what a move forward for chickens themselves and the products from these chickens!

Resistance to enrichments

Some producers may dismiss the whole idea of environmental enrichment. Raising a food animal, such as a chicken, is best described by the FLAWS (feed, light, litter, air, water, sanitation, security and space) acronym. So, they might believe the best improvement to welfare is through a focus on these basic tenets of good management.

Others may perceive that adding environmental enrichments complicates management, requiring extra effort to set up, maintain and possibly relocate. There may also be concerns that such enrichments could hinder airflow or efficiency of existing environmental controls within the broiler house.

Additionally, some producers may believe there are production or performance negatives associated with environmental enrichment. The rationale is that activity burns calories, and burning calories hurts performance; thus, activity should be discouraged. This rationale is consistent for a producer with a least-cost approach.

More research needed

There is a clear need for further research in this area. However, strict traditional research approaches in which everything is controlled and a single variable is focused on in each study will be very slow and confusing for this subject. The research that is needed is best done with an academia and industry partnership, likely conducted in commercial chicken houses.

To make it even more complicated, I think we will all need to do work in our own operations. We can learn things from each other, but because there are so many different approaches to raising chickens, we will have some different conclusions around the same thought. (This is not new, of course.)

Why not enrichment?

Why would a company NOT do some work with enriched environments? Surely, we owe it to ourselves, our customers and the animals we raise for food to have some first-hand knowledge about the idea that a more complex environment might be beneficial for the chicken and the chicken products produced from these animals.

Or we can wait for somebody to tell us what to do with this area. This approach is far from ideal. This is not a trendy, touchy-feely thing that will eventually just go away. Wouldn’t it be better to put some in, see what you think, and have an opinion based on real experience?

1. The five freedoms. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20121010012427/http://www.fawc.org.uk/freedoms.htm.
2. Mellor DJ, Reid CSW. Concepts of animal well-being and predicting the impact of procedures on experimental animals. In: Baker RM, Jenkin G, Mellor DJ, editors. Improving the Well-being of Animals in the Research Environment. Australian and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research and Teaching; Glen Osmond, Australia. 1994:3-18.