Commercial Poultry Production and Hatchery Management

POULTRY WELFARE

• Although chickens are very different from people, it is thought that they are capable of suffering from states such as pain or frustration.
• Ethical consideration therefore needs to be applied to poultry farming, and ways of ensuring good welfare for such large numbers of animals need to be found. The concept of animal welfare refers to an animal’s overall state of well-being.
• OIE considers that good animal welfare requires disease prevention and veterinary treatment, appropriate shelter, management, nutrition, humane handling and humane slaughter/killing.
• In general, many different components of a bird’s state must be considered to judge whether its welfare is good or bad.
• Some of the components that FAO considers important are that the birds should be healthy, comfortable, well nourished, and safe.
• It is also important that birds are able to express behaviours that are priorities in a captive environment and that they should not suffer from unpleasant mental states such as pain, fear and distress (although these feelings cannot be measured directly).
• When considering animal welfare as a whole, it is important to take each of these components into consideration.
• It is suggested that the farmed animals or birds should have five basic “freedoms” of movement, such as the freedom to stretch and the freedom to turn around. The Five Freedoms that all farm birds should have:
  • freedom from hunger and thirst;
  • freedom from discomfort;
  • freedom from pain, injury and disease;
  • freedom to express normal behaviour;
  • freedom from fear and distress.
• The Five Freedoms have been highly influential, and OIE accepts them as one of the guiding principles governing animal welfare.
• They are also referenced in most European welfare legislation, referred to by veterinary and animal welfare organizations worldwide, and form the basis for OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code Article 7.1.1. However, they also have drawbacks.
• In particular, it is not easy to decide which normal or innate behaviours are important for animals in captive environments.
• Recently, the European Welfare Quality consortium (www.welfarequality.net/everyone) has expanded and clarified the components of animal welfare, proposing a set of four principles and 12 criteria, as shown Table.

Welfare principles	Welfare criteria
Good feeding	Absence of prolonged hunger
	Absence of prolonged thirst
Good housing	Comfort around resting
	Thermal comfort
	Ease of movement
Good health	Absence of injuries
	Absence of disease
	Absence of pain induced by management procedures
Appropriate behaviour	Expression of social behaviours
	Expression of other behaviours
	Good human-animal relationship
	Positive emotional state