Welfare and productivity of laying hens in commercial organic egg production systems in Denmark

Plumage condition, use of outdoor run, mortality and productivity were recorded in 18 Danish commercial organic egg-producing flocks consisting of 1200–5000 hens each. Between 7 and 38% of the hens in a flock used the outdoor run, with a mean of 18%. In most flocks the majority of the hens outside stayed close to the hen house, but some farmers succeeded in attracting the hens away from the house, which reduced the percentage of hens staying close to the house to 15%. At the age of 56 weeks, six flocks had little or no plumage damage, whereas four flocks showed severe feather pecking, but here feather pecking was already evident at an age of 28 weeks. Plumage condition was not significantly correlated with use of the outdoor run. The range in mortality rate amongst flocks was 9–62%, with an average of 22%. The high mortality was partly due to outbreaks of Pasteurella, mortality reaching over 50% in two of the four afflicted flocks. In some flocks also predatory attacks and piling (causing suffocation of the lowest birds) caused mortality. Average egg production was better than reported for Danish organic and free-range non-organic farms, but feed consumption and feed conversion rate were slightly higher. The results of this study do not provide a definite answer to the question whether or not hens should be kept outside

Økologisk ægproduktion: Produktion, sundhed, ernæring og næringsstofhusholdning

Økologisk ægproduktion har bidt sig fast som en af Danmarks største økologiske fødevaresucceser målt som andel produceret og solgt økologisk. Økologisk ægproduktion er efter økologisk mælkeproduktion den vigtigste animalske økologiske produktion i Danmark. Det er imidlertid en produktionsform, der er følsom overfor kritik. I forbrugernes øjne er økologiske æg et alternativ til æg fra burægproduktion, som primært er kritiseret for manglende dyrevelfærd. Det er derfor vigtigt, at den økologiske ægproduktion kan dokumentere en tilfredsstillende dyrevelfærd. Dette aktualiseres af, at traditionel burægsproduktion er under udfasning i EU og at økologisk ægproduktion i fremtiden skal konkurrere mod nye alternative indhusningsformer med fokus på dyrevelfærd. I den økologiske bevægelse er der bekymring over den miljømæssige bæredygtighed i ensidig økologisk ægproduktion. Det er derfor vigtigt for de økologiske ægproducenter at kunne dokumentere et tilfredsstillende næringsstofregnskab

Forbedrede udearealer i økologisk ægproduktion

Med henblik på at styrke forsknings- og udviklingsindsatsen inden for økologisk fjerkræproduktion, blev det muligt med finansiering fra Direktoratet for FødevareErhverv, i 2001 at påbegynde udviklingsprojektet ”Fjerkræets udearealer ved økologisk produktion”. Projektet tog udgangspunkt i en række interessetilkendegivelser fra fjerkræproducenter og andre interesserede indenfor økologisk fjerkræproduktion, og projektet blev planlagt i et samarbejde mellem • Brancheforeningen for Økologiske Æg- og Fjerkræproducenter • Dansk Erhvervsfjerkræ • Landsforeningen for Økologisk Jordbrug • Landskontoret for Fjerkrærådgivning og • Danmarks JordbrugsForskning som koordinerende partner Det var en grundlæggende ide i projektet at tage udgangspunkt i de medvirkende producenters allerede opbyggede erfaringsgrundlag og idéer til videre udvikling. En del af projektet tog udgangspunkt i en interessetilkendegivelse fra en gruppe ægproducenter, ”Hønsegården” A.m.b.a., der havde et samarbejde om videndeling og afsætning. Producenterne havde i samarbejde med Landskontoret for Fjerkrærådgivning identificeret udearealerne (hønsegårdene) som et centralt område, hvor der var behov for yderligere viden om den mest hensigtsmæssige indretning og drift i forhold til såvel hønernes produktivitet og velfærd som miljøeffekter. Rapporten beskriver de opnåede resultater fra denne del af projektet og på grundlag heraf gives anbefalinger til, hvorledes udearealerne mest hensigtsmæssigt bør indrettes

Building Successful Partnerships for Technology Transfer

As budgets for Cooperative Extension projects get tighter, many units are enticed to consider partnerships with agencies and organizations to continue to proactively deliver services. Our experience working with the USDA Forest Service in a partnership that involves joint staffing and funding for technology transfer and research projects enables us to offer specific advice on how to use this tool most effectively. Communication and planning are essential and should cover everything from who gets office keys to who hires temporary staff

Digital Natives and Educational Traditions. What Changes When Exchanging Textbook Content with Internet Search?

Use of technology challenge traditional concepts of learning in school. But what is actually changing? The paper shows result from a study that finds that the shift from textbook to internet content implicates significant changes. Textbooks present qualified content that is well adapted to the cognitive development of students of certain ages. Using internet content gives no such guarantees. The content validation has to be taken care of by the students. The internet search demands more complex skills than accessing content through the textbook. The students have to find relevant search terms, review and validate the results they find, select relevant content, use relevant strategies for storing and retrieving content and having the ability to present abstracts of their findings that are adapted to their learning purpose. Collaboration works well for searching for content online because the students can benefit from each other’s prior knowledge when discussing and reflecting during the learning work. Communicative and collaborative skills are important. So are good relations, to able students to work through obstacles and keep focus on the task even when internet searching takes them everywhere. Internet content has a flexibility that makes it easy adaptable to all students’ learning prerequisites. Student collaboration between heterogeneous peers can work well because the complexity of the task involves a lot of different tasks to manage and are easy to distribute. It also makes possible for high performing students to find engaging content that will motivate and nourish the learning motivation

As a Matter of Factions: The Budgetary Implications of Shifting Factional Control in Japan’s LDP

For 38 years, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) maintained single-party control over the Japanese government. This lack of partisan turnover in government has frustrated attempts to explain Japanese government policy changes using political variables. In this paper, we look for intraparty changes that may have led to changes in Japanese budgetary policy. Using a simple model of agenda-setting, we hypothesize that changes in which intraparty factions “control” the LDP affect the party’s decisions over spending priorities systematically. This runs contrary to the received wisdom in the voluminous literature on LDP factions, which asserts that factions, whatever their raison d’être, do not exhibit different policy preferences. We find that strong correlations do exist between which factions comprise the agenda-setting party “mainstream” and how the government allocates spending across pork-barrel and public goods items

Sow body condition at weaning and reproduction performance in organic piglet production

The objective was to investigate the variation in backfat at weaning and its relations to reproduction results in organic sow herds in Denmark. The study included eight herds and 573 sows. The average backfat at weaning mean�13 mm; SD�4.2 mm) ranging from 10.5 to 17.3 mm among herds shows that it is possible to avoid poor body condition at weaning even with a lactation length of seven weeks or more. No main effect of backfat at weaning on reproduction performance was found, but the probability of a successful reproduction after weaning tended to decrease with decreasing backfat for first parity sows, whereas the opposite was the case for multiparous sows

Consumption of CH3Cl, CH3Br, and CH3I and emission of CHCl3, CHBr3, and CH2Br2 from the forefield of a retreating Arctic glacier

The Arctic is one of the most rapidly warming regions of the Earth, with predicted temperature increases of 5–7 ∘C and the accompanying extensive retreat of Arctic glacial systems by 2100. Retreating glaciers will reveal new land surfaces for microbial colonisation, ultimately succeeding to tundra over decades to centuries. An unexplored dimension to these changes is the impact upon the emission and consumption of halogenated organic compounds (halocarbons). Halocarbons are involved in several important atmospheric processes, including ozone destruction, and despite considerable research, uncertainties remain in the natural cycles of some of these compounds. Using flux chambers, we measured halocarbon fluxes across the glacier forefield (the area between the present-day position of a glacier's ice-front and that at the last glacial maximum) of a high-Arctic glacier in Svalbard, spanning recently exposed sediments (<10 years) to approximately 1950-year-old tundra. Forefield land surfaces were found to consume methyl chloride (CH3Cl) and methyl bromide (CH3Br), with both consumption and emission of methyl iodide (CH3I) observed. Bromoform (CHBr3) and dibromomethane (CH2Br2) have rarely been measured from terrestrial sources but were here found to be emitted across the forefield. Novel measurements conducted on terrestrial cyanobacterial mats covering relatively young surfaces showed similar measured fluxes to the oldest, vegetated tundra sites for CH3Cl, CH3Br, and CH3I (which were consumed) and for CHCl3 and CHBr3 (which were emitted). Consumption rates of CH3Cl and CH3Br and emission rates of CHCl3 from tundra and cyanobacterial mat sites were within the ranges reported from older and more established Arctic tundra elsewhere. Rough calculations showed total emissions and consumptions of these gases across the Arctic were small relative to other sources and sinks due to the small surface area represented by glacier forefields. We have demonstrated that glacier forefields can consume and emit halocarbons despite their young age and low soil development, particularly when cyanobacterial mats are present

Examining Change in Confidence: A Unique Approach to Interprofessional Education Evaluation

Introduction. Measuring student confidence is integral to evaluating student perceived ability regarding interprofessional collaborative practice. The purpose of this study was to examine change in confidence after an introductory interprofessional education assignment using Bandura’s self-efficacy framework. Methods. A retrospective pre-post design assessed change in student confidence, targeting the strength dimension of self-efficacy beliefs. Students enrolled in health discipline-specific courses in two sequential years participated in an introductory embedded case-based IPE assignment. Sixteen statements were developed to assess students’ confidence for specific Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) sub-competencies consistent with student learning outcomes. Descriptive statistics, paired sample t-tests (comparing pre-post), analysis of variance and independent samples t-tests (comparing across disciplines and the two years) were used in the analysis. Results. Data from 203 participants provided a useable response of 80.6%. The percent of students indicating an increase in their confidence for the different IPEC sub-competencies ranged from 38.9% for “Encourage ideas and opinions of other team members” to 82.3% for “Explain the roles and responsibilities of other professionals”. Differences in mean change in confidence was found among nine sub-competencies when comparing across the disciplines. In addition, students in Year 1 reported larger increases in confidence for nine sub-competencies compared to Year 2 students. Discussion. Results give insight to student perceptions for strategic formative assessment and IPE assignment design. A retrospective pre-post design provided a novel means of examining change in confidence that avoids response-shift bias, while providing students the opportunity to explicitly self-report change or lack of change in confidence. Smaller increases in confidence in Year 2 compared to Year 1 were unexpected and may be due to the Year 2 requirement that teams discuss and agree upon team rules. Although counter-intuitive, the potential for reducing the amount of conflict may have contributed to less of an increase in confidence, as confidence can be gained from not only being well prepared, but also overcoming adversity (mastery experience). Each Year 2 student also was required to write a reflection regarding team ground rules and their implementation. This may have helped students realize greater complexities of successful interprofessional collaboration and their own limitations to achieve it