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Assessing Welfare: Behavioural and Physiological Measures

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Assessing Welfare: Behavioural and Physiological Measures

During this week, we will consider what we mean by "animal welfare", and how a set of criteria known as the Five Freedoms can help you assess it. Dr Dorothy McKeegan from the University of Glasgow will discuss what the ethical obligations are of meeting an animal's welfare needs, and we will explore some of the various welfare standards that exist. Finally, we will look at welfare indicators, and Dr Barry Thorp from St David's Veterinary Team will discuss with Vicky what signs to look for in chicken flocks to make a welfare assessment. This week's Learning Outcomes: •Define 'welfare' and the Five Freedoms •What drives our ethical choices, including cost-benefit analysis •Describe some welfare standards available worldwide and how they differ •Explain ways to assess welfare, using behavioural and physiological indices

This course explains the general principles of chicken behaviour and welfare, and the behavioural and physiological indicators that can be used to assess welfare in chickens kept in hobby flocks through to commercial farms. The focus is primarily on laying hens and meat chickens (broilers) although many of the principles are relevant to other types of poultry. The course is likely to be of interest to people who own chickens as pets or keep a small hobby flock, commercial egg and chicken meat producers, veterinarians and vet nurses. Learning Objectives: at the end of this course, you will be able to - - Describe avian sensory perception and motivation - Explain the main behaviour patterns of poultry - Define welfare and explain the bases of welfare standards - Assess chicken welfare, using behavioural and physiological means - Understand common welfare problems of chickens This course is taught by staff from Scotland's Rural College (SRUC), University of Glasgow, and St David's Poultry Team. You can follow us on Twitter! #chickenmooc © University of Edinburgh and Scotland's Rural College 2016 CC BY

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教學方

Dr Victoria Sandilands
Senior scientist

腳本

So how can we assess welfare in our chickens?

Well we can use both behavioral and physiological indices to do this.

And with me today, I've got Barry Thorp from St. David's Poultry Veterinary Group,

and he's a veterinarian that specializes in poultry.

>> So Vicky, can you tell me how you assess welfare,

and then I'll tell you what I would be doing.

>> Okay. So

if I was going to use behavioral indices to assess welfare, I would try and think

of both what I would expect to be normal and what I would expect to be abnormal.

So if I think about feeding and drinking behavior, normal behavior for

chickens would be that they're eating the right amount of diet for

their stage of production and their age, they're drinking

the right amount of water, which is usually about double their feed intake.

Abnormal feeding and drinking behavior would be a sudden decrease in feed intake,

that I couldn't explain by say, for example,

a change in feed type, which often depresses feed intake for

a short while or, say, a hen going broody, which decreases her feed intake.

Other kinds of behaviors I might see is if I look for movement for example,

so normal movement behavior would be that the chickens move away from me quite

easily and without any kind of limping, they're not stiff.

Often, for abnormal movement, you might expect animals, perhaps, to be limping or

not moving until the last minute if there's something wrong with them.

I would also think about their body posture.

Normal behavior in chickens is they're, they're generally upright and

alert; if they're showing abnormal posture, then they might be hunched and

fluffed up, and kind of tucking their, their head into their neck, and

that's a clear sign that something probably isn't right.

Vocalization is also a good one: if you keep chickens,

then you're probably familiar with what is normal for your flock,

a kind of gentle chattering, I like to think of it as.

Whereas if there's something wrong or disturbing the flock, then

interestingly you might get one of two extremes, you might get the birds being

extremely quiet or showing 'hysteria' if you like.

And finally, I'd also use looking at social behavior of chickens, so

normal social behavior would generally be that you would see chickens being

part of the flock and tending to stick together.

However, if the bird is separating itself from the flock, without

an obvious reason such as egg-laying, then it might give you some cause for concern.

What about you? What kind of measures would you use?

>> Really fairly similarly actually.

We're not, I find it very hard to differentiate

assessing a flock similarly for welfare and assessing it for, for health and

welfare, I tend to tie them both together.

And what I do is, I visit the, visit the poultry house, the first thing I want is

a bit of information, I'm looking for information, the same as you, about feed

consumption, water consumption, is that following expectations, is it dropped,

whatever, then I'd like to know what the body weight of the birds is like?

I'd like to know what time the lights go on in the morning, what time they go off

in the evening, the general pattern, and then any changes in that pattern.

Then I would te, tend to go in to look at the birds.

Initially, I would just go through the door, into the house, and

just observe them, don't disturb them at all.

What are the birds doing?

Are they moving around the house?

Are there some birds that are sitting hunched up on perches,

may be don't look very happy.

Are the birds behaving aggressively to each other?

Are they being quiet?

What they're up to really?

And gradually build up that assessment, and the next stage really is actually to

start walking through the house, looking at the litter.

Picking up the odd bird and examining it.

What's its body weight like?

What's its body condition like?

Is it lighter than expected?

Do the bones really easily felt?

That kind of thing.

Looking at its eyes, its nose, see if there's any discharges.

What color is the comb?

Is it a nice bright red color?

So a lot of this pertains to health, but it,

it also may indicate as welfare issues too.

Feathering, very important to look at feathering,

is the bird properly feathered?

What are those feathers like, are they shiny, are they dull, are they broken?

That kind of thing.

That gradually builds up a picture of the flock.

While you're listening to the flock as well, you might hear some coughing,

which again, is an indicator of, of disease in that flock.

>> So what does a chicken cough sound like?

>> Well, it depends what disease they've got, but

there's one called ILT which is infection of the and there they

get a kind of sheet of membrane, actually almost blocks the trachea, and

then they have a really good cough, as they try to clear it, sort of [COUGH].

But the best time to, to hear birds coughing or

to hear sounds is to go up when it's dark.

Fans are switched off, the birds are quiet for the night,

they're not making those background noises, Then if you've got a few

individual birds in that house that are coughing, you can hear them quite clearly.

>> So, that gives you a general picture of how you would assess welfare in poultry

using both behavioral and physiological indices, the complication comes is that

if birds cannot alleviate these stressors in their environment that are causing

the welfare problems, then it can lead onto long-term problems

such as frustration, stereotypic behavior, learned helplessness and depression.

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