Pecking is one of the most concerning poultry welfare issues in layer houses, especially cage-free (CF) housing system. behavior may lead to severe feather pecking (SFP) and cannibalism when birds feel frustrated, stressed, dominant over other birds. Since caused by multi-factorial problems (e.g., hormonal influence, environment, dietary composition, genetic differences), it very important find...

The aim of this review was to compare welfare, health, and hygienic status of laying hens housed in furnished cages and in alternative systems. In alternative systems (floor housing and aviaries), birds have more freedom of movement and a more complex environment than in furnished cages. However, housing birds in much larger flocks in alternative systems leads to an increased risk of feather-pe...

SUMMARYDietary fibre has traditionally been considered an energy-diluting component of laying hen diets. With low energetic values, and sometimes negative impacts on digesta viscosity gut function, formulations have often aimed to minimise crude contents. Increasing contents can mean that the level fat required meet nutritional standards must be increased account for decrease in energy, with co...

Feather pecking (FP) is one of the most significant welfare and economic problems in the egg production industry (Wysocki et al., 2010). For many years the solution to this problem has been beak trimming, which typically involves removing approximately 30% of the upper and lower mandibles with an electrically heated blade (Dennis & Cheng, 2010). However, this practice is now under scrutiny due ...

Chickens homozygous for the Dominant white or wild-type allele of PMEL17 were subjected to a broad phenotyping in order to detect consistent differences between genotypes. To exclude feather pecking, the chickens were individually housed without physical contact, from the day of hatching, and tested for social, aggressive, fear and exploratory behaviors, and corticosterone and testosterone leve...

The modern poultry industry has a remarkable record in reducing mortality, applying a combination of effective disease control, adequate nutrition, good husbandry and genetic selection. Primary breeders, specialized in the adaptation of layers, broilers and turkeys to changing demands of a global food market, have made three major contributions in the past: (1) eradication of vertically transmi...