Chicken welfare is influenced more by housing conditions than by stocking density
Chicken welfare is influenced more by housing conditions than by stocking density
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DOI：
10.1038/nature02226
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发表时间：
2004-01-22
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Jones, TA
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dawkins, MS;Donnelly, CA;Jones, TA
在英国，集约化的肉鸡（肉）生产现在每年超过8亿只鸡，全世界超过2 x 10（10）只鸡（1），但它引起了福利差的指责（2，3）。欧洲联盟目前正在采用针对主要福利问题的肉鸡标准-即过度拥挤-通过限制最大“放养密度”（单位面积的禽类重量）。然而，这是否真的会改善鸟类福利还不清楚，因为证据是相互矛盾的（4-10）。在这里，我们通过一项大规模研究（270万只鸡）报告了与欧盟提案相关的肉鸡福利，该研究与10家主要肉鸡生产商进行了前所未有的合作，在一系列商业条件下对饲养密度进行了实验性操作。生产商将鸟类放养到五种不同的最终密度，但其他方面都遵循公司的做法，我们除了记录温度，湿度，垃圾和空气质量外，还记录了这些数据。我们通过死亡率、生理、行为和健康来评估福利，重点是腿部健康和行走能力。我们的研究结果表明，生产者之间的差异，他们为鸡提供的环境有更多的福利比放养密度本身的影响。
Intensive broiler ( meat) chicken production now exceeds 800 million birds each year in the United Kingdom and 2 x 10(10) birds worldwide(1), but it attracts accusations of poor welfare(2,3). The European Union is currently adopting standards for broilers aimed at a chief welfare concern - namely, overcrowding - by limiting maximum ' stocking density' ( bird weight per unit area). It is not clear, however, whether this will genuinely improve bird welfare because evidence is contradictory(4-10). Here we report on broiler welfare in relation to the European Union proposals through a large- scale study ( 2.7 million birds) with the unprecedented cooperation of ten major broiler producers in an experimental manipulation of stocking density under a range of commercial conditions. Producer companies stocked birds to five different final densities, but otherwise followed company practice, which we recorded in addition to temperature, humidity, litter and air quality. We assessed welfare through mortality, physiology, behaviour and health, with an emphasis on leg health and walking ability. Our results show that differences among producers in the environment that they provide for chickens have more impact on welfare than has stocking density itself.