Nardone, 2010 – Effects of climate changes on animal production and sustainability of livestock systems
This content is only available to IEC Members, please log in or enquire about membership.
The US egg industry is being pressured from many directions to change its production practices, particularly to address concerns about hen welfare in conventional cage systems. Responding to similar pressures, in 1999, the European Union banned conventional laying cages starting in 2012. This now impending European ban has led to the development of several alternative …
An experiment was conducted with 672 Hy-Line W-36 Single Comb White Leghorn hens (69 wk of age) to evaluate the …
The objectives of this study were to compare the behaviors, postures, and heterophil-to-lymphocyte ratios (H:L) of laying hens housed in a cage system when offered a Ca premolt treatment and low-energy molt diets vs. a traditional feed withdrawal (FW) treatment during and after molt. A total of 144 Hy-Line W-36 hens (85 wk of age), …
Resting on perches is an important behaviour for laying hens. However, perches in laying hen husbandry systems are associated with health problems which may result from inadequate perch designs. The aim of this study was to focus on particular behavioural patterns shown by laying hens on different perches during night-time in order to test whether …
By investigating the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance characteristics of Gram-positive bacteria from organic and conventional keeping systems of laying hens, …
Organic livestock production is a means of food production with a large number of rules directed towards a high status …
From 2012 onwards, housing of laying hens in conventional battery cages will be forbidden in the European Union and only …
1. The welfare of hens in 26 flocks (6 conventional cage, 6 furnished cage, 7 barn, 7 free range) was assessed throughout the laying period using a combination of data on physical health, physiology and injurious pecking, collected by researchers on farm and during post-mortem analysis, and information submitted by producers. 2. There was an …
Feather pecking is a major welfare problem in egg production. It may be caused by endogenous (genetic and physiological) and environmental (feeding, density and housing conditions) factors. Despite the number and variety of experiments performed over past years, it is still not possible to define a genetic background for this trait. A possible reason is …
Feather pecking (FP) remains a major welfare and economic problem in laying hens. FP has been found to be related to other behavioural characteristics, such as fearfulness. There are indications that fearful birds are more likely to develop FP. Furthermore, FP can lead to increased fearfulness in the victims. To investigate further the relationship between …
Recent studies showed that laying hens learn not to peck at bitter-tasting feathers from conspecifics. In the present experiment, feathers of newly hatched chicks were made distasteful by spraying them with a bitter-tasting substance (quinine). It was hypothesized that chicks could detect quinine and learn to avoid the downy feathers and the feathers of conspecifics …
1. Feather pecking is one of the major problems facing the egg industry in non-cage systems and is set to become even more of an issue with the European Union ban on the keeping of laying hens in barren battery cages which comes into force in 2012 and the prospect of a ban on beaktrimming. …
As part of a systemic assessment toward social sustainability of egg production, we have reviewed current knowledge about the environmental …
Ergosterol (ERG) content, being an indicator of fungal biomass, was analyzed in samples of eggshell, egg white, and egg yolk …
A move from conventional cages to either an enriched cage or a noncage system may affect the safety or quality, …
Commercial egg laying farms are under intense pressure to eliminate the practice of beak trimming due to the potential for acute and chronic pain to the trimmed birds. However, elimination of beak trimming may have severe implications for animal welfare, as pecking between untrimmed birds can result in body damage that can ultimately lead to …