Continuous lighting is commonplace in commercial broiler houses, but is that what’s best for the birds?
The ability to process birds on farms and eliminate live transport offers some compelling benefits to the poultry industry whose customers are increasingly disconnected from animal agriculture.
Damaging behaviors in poultry include feather pecking, vent pecking, and toe pecking. While feather and vent pecking are well-known welfare problems in poultry that have received significant attention from researchers and farmers, toe pecking remains relatively unknown.
The first few days of life are some of the most important in chicks’ lives. During this time, chicks start developing and set themselves up for the rest of their lifetime. The husbandry decisions made at this point can impact the birds’ growth, development, health and welfare.
Various claims and labels on the products provide consumers with information about how the animals were raised and treated during production. However, the information on animal products can sometimes be confusing.
The incubation environment is important for embryonic development and programs chick welfare. The focus of this newsletter is on the effects of the incubator environment on chicken egg incubation, but the same principles can apply to other poultry species.
Tryptophan is an essential amino acid, which is the building block of protein, therefore it cannot be synthesized by the body itself and must be obtained through food; it is important for many metabolic functions. A tryptophan deficiency could affect behavioral responses to stress in poultry.
The consequences of cold stress can be severe, leading to death in extreme cases. A chicken’s susceptibility to cold stress depends on various factors, including the chicken’s breed, age, body size, amount of feather coverage and condition of the feathers and nutritional status.
Steam or steam plus forced air heat may become an approved method to supplement ventilation shutdown during emergency depopulation of cage-free aviary laying operations, according to researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Arkansas.
On-farm hatching of broilers may be a viable option to increase efficiency by increasing hatchability and reducing total mortality during rearing, according to scientists in Denmark.
By Michael Czarick
Extension Specialist – Engineering
University of Georgia
Department of Poultry Science
Transporting poultry from grow farms to processing plants can be stressful for birds, even more so in humid weather or during a brisk cold snap when stress levels can increase enough to contribute to weight loss and reduced meat quality.
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