Animal Welfare Indicators - Assessment Scheme for Broiler Hybrids, Dual-Purpose Roosters, and Male Layer Hybrids
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Due to differences in body shape and behavior, existing animal welfare assessment schemes for broiler chickens are only of limited suitability for all three broiler types. For the ProBioHuhn project, drawing on assessment schemes for youngand laying hens, a scheme was developed for assessing the animal welfare of broiler hybrids, male laying hybrids, and dual-purpose roosters. This scheme is applicable to all three types of poultry and also allows for comparative animal welfare monitoring (Gieseke et al. 2023).
The assessment involves 50 animals that were randomly selected from all areas of the barn, or the evaluator walks slowly through the entire barn along the feeding stations and assesses the gait of 50 randomly selected, moving animals from a distance, as well as the consistency of 50 fecal samples. The assessment scheme can also be used during live animal acceptance at the slaughterhouse (without assessing gait or fecal consistency).
A traffic-light system was developed to evaluate the percentages of animals with specific animal welfare issues; it can be downloaded here.
The “ProBioHuhn” project was funded by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs pursuant to a resolution of the German Bundestag as part of the Federal Program for Organic Farming.
References:
Gieseke, D., Singer, J., Matoni, L., Jung, L., Keppler, C., Knierim, U., 2023. Evaluation of an animal-based indicator system for assessing the welfare of young roosters. In: Current Research on Species-Appropriate Animal Husbandry 2023. Board of Trustees for Technology and Construction in Agriculture, Darmstadt, pp. 32–42.