ANIMAL-BASED INDICATORS FOR ON-FARM WELFARE ASSESSMENT IN POULTRY

Improvements in poultry welfare are essential to ensure the quality of bird\u2019s lives, but also may have fruitful outcomes to industry for minimizing the economic losses impacts under better bird performance, and carcass quality with reductions of mortality and condemnations. In fact, adopting a valid, reliable, and feasible welfare assessment protocol on-farm is fairly valuable method not only addressed to poultry welfare, but also, to industries interests, and consumer demands. Several array internal and external identified factors can largely influence the welfare and health evaluation of turkey flocks. The present study focuses mainly on the development of a welfare assessment protocol on-farm based on animal-based indicators. These parameters were carefully reviewed and critically tested. In Chapter 1 and 2, the aim was to do a literature review on animal-based indicators for turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo), gathering information about promising indicators that could be included into an on-farm welfare assessment protocol. Social, environmental variables and pathological findings were pointed out as factors affecting behavior and welfare of turkeys that may be relevant economically to the commercial production systems. In Chapter 3, the walks through following line transect methodology used in wildlife studies was adapted to explore their feasibility as a welfare assessment tool. The aim of this study was to compare broiler welfare assessed by individual sampling and transect walks. Six managed flocks were evaluated. Measures on 150 birds were carried out for the individual sampling. Observers walked slowly on random order paths and recorded the incidence of immobility, lameness, dirtiness, sick, agony and dead birds. It was possible to detected small variations across farms (P < 0.003) in the prevalence of most welfare indicators and consistency in inter-observer reliability (P 65 0.05). Surprisingly, both methods differed greatly in the frequency of the studied parameters. Possibly, the transect walks might have overlooked walking impairs due to a large number of birds. Another hypothesis may be related to biased individual sampling procedures. In Chapter 4, the study investigated the feasibility of the transect walks method as a novel approach to on-farm welfare assessment of male and female commercial turkey flocks in Italy. This is the first report of welfare assessment using the transect walks method in Europe at turkey farms. A total of 25 commercial [B.U.T.] - Big 6) turkey flocks (15 male and 10 female) with similar management standard procedures were evaluated. Incidence of birds falling into any of the welfare categories was recorded. The studied indicators were: immobility, lameness, wounds, featherless, small size and serious health issues in the flocks, for instance, sick, terminally ill and dead. In addition, behavioral variables as aggression towards mate, interaction with humans and mating were also considered. Sensitivity of the method was noted by effect of sex (P < 0.001) for immobility, lameness, wounds and dirtiness indicators. In addition, inter-observer reliability (P 65 0.05) was also consistent for almost the studied variables. Male birds showed high incidence of immobility (0.14% \ub1 0.02% vs. 0.02% \ub1 0), lameness (9.06% \ub1 0.41% vs. 4.34% \ub1 0.20%), wounds (3.54% \ub1 0.19% vs. 1.38% \ub1 0.09%) and dirtiness (0.20% \ub1 0.02% vs. 0.07% \ub1 0.01%) than female flocks, respectively. Transect walks approach is an essential component, indeed, to improve the welfare assessment on-farm level. It showed to be a valuable alternative method at commercial strains of meat turkeys. Thus, this innovative method fulfills some industries and producers requirements, such as, no bird disturbing or animal catching with decreased of time-consuming and personnel involved, and no extra costs required, at its application at commercial practices. Some further research should be done to fill the complex gaps and improve the welfare protocol introduced herein

Transect walks : method sensitivity for on-farm welfare evaluation in turkeys

There is increasing consumer demands for livestock and poultry products that meet minimum animal welfare standards during their production cycle. Additionally, a growing number of farmers are aware about full compliance with the animal welfare standards that could play an important economic role in commercial intensive productions. Indeed, animal welfare assessment protocols have meaningful effects to promote and guarantee the on-farm safeguard animal standards. Transect walks method appeared to provide a practical approach to welfare assessment in broilers farms. Because of the similarities of meat poultry production, this method could be considered a reasonable approach for turkey welfare evaluation in terms of time demands, within costs and feasibility. The aim of this study was to determine the sensitivity of this method at 3 commercial turkey farms with similar facilities (Animal Welfare Indicators project, FP7-KBBE-2010-4). In this study, 10 commercial female-turkey flocks (6 houses with identical management), ranging from 3,212 to 6,000 birds and belonging to the same company were evaluated one week before slaughter. On turkey farms, walking through the house is a routine daily procedure to check the health status of the birds. Two previously trained assessors in performing the transect methodology and properly assessing the selected indicators, evaluated each paired house sequentially and independently within the same day by walking through predefined transect bands (1 to 4) in random order. The animal-based indicators considered were: immobility, lameness, wounds and featherless. The statistical model used was GLM in the GENMOD procedure (SAS V9). The results showed that this welfare assessment method highlights even small variation among houses for the considered variables. In fact, there were significant difference across houses (P=0.0021, P=0.0006, P=0.0081 and P=0.0003) for all the evaluated indicators respectively. Differences across observers were detected for wounds and featherless (P<0.0001). These results may be due to the difficulties in assessing equally these parameters while walking. On the contrary, lameness, probably the most important welfare problem in meat poultry, showed a good concordance between observers (P= 0.361). These preliminary findings suggest that this new approach has potential as a tool for on-farm welfare evaluation, which may be worthwhile to be further developed

Substrate choice by turkeys differing in 3-point gait-scoring system in a mobility test

Assessment of pain in poultry flocks\u2019 production is one of the biggest welfare concerns. The aim of this study was to evaluate the walking ability and preferences for three types of substrates by turkeys with different degrees of lameness, in order to verify if birds with higher gait score experience pain and how their choices differ from healthy birds. An experimental test was conducted with 16 male-turkeys 116-day-old (B.U.T.6). Nine birds (56.25%) were considered normal (score 0) whereas 7 (43.75%) were evaluated as having mild to severe lameness (scores 1 or 2) according to 3-point gait-score assessment. A familiar (A: wet litter) and unfamiliar (B: plastic slat) substrate were distributed into three horizontal lines (L1, L2, and L3; each one measuring 150cm length x 60cm width) separated by three concrete empty areas of the same measures. L1 was divided into 75cm of A substrate and the same dimensions of B; L2 had 100cm of A and 50cm of B, while L3 had 50cm of A and 100cm of B. The turkeys\u2019 motivation to pass through the lines was triggered by the presence of conspecifics located at the end of the experimental area. Data were analyzed using ANOVA. There were no significant differences between normal and lame turkeys to the total time spent on three lines (215.00\ub161.59s), (233.57\ub174.81s);the total time spent on the empty area (385.22\ub183.70s), (557.71\ub1124.04s) and the total time to cross the testing areas (581.3\ub191.72s), (791.2\ub1154.44s),respectively. Substrate A was chosen by 71.4% of lame birds even in L1 as L2, while 55.6% of normal turkeys preferred substrate B in L1 and 77.8% chose substrate A in L2. All birds walked on substrate B in L3. According to these preliminary results, it seems that lame birds have no difference in substrate choice, or on the time spent in each part of the experiment

Awin welfare assessment protocols

What are the AWIN welfare assessment protocol? It is a science-based welfare assessment method, built on animal-based indicators, including pain. What are they for? It is intended to assess welfare of turkeys, sheep, goats, horses and donkeys on farm. Why use a two level approach strategy? The AWIN welfare assessment protocols offer, as a first level, a quick screening, consisting of a selection of robust and feasible animal-based indicators. Depending on the outcome, a second level, consisting of a more comprehensive and in-depth assessment, may be recommended

Transects : A new approach for on-farm broiler welfare assessment

Animal welfare has wide-ranging implications for animal production in the global market, as it plays an important role granting its competitiveness and sustainability. Increasing number of countries has specific farm animal welfare legislation, although its verification is difficult due in part to complexity of assessment protocols. Here we present practical feasibility of a new transect approach tested on broiler production that may permit a more efficient on-farm welfare assessment. The line transect approach is based on methodology widely used in wildlife studies and it is close to farmers routine. The transects for welfare assessment consists of set walks divided in randomly ordered transects covering full area of the house. Walk through the house is a standard procedure for broiler daily care, which facilitates the understanding of the methodology for anyone with minimal broiler care experience. We assessed six identically managed commercial houses of similar dimensions, located in Northern Spain, with flock size ranging from 13,220 to 27,540. A total of 5 transects were conducted per house. Our results indicated that validated welfare indicators for broilers such as: incidence of immobile, limping, dirty, sick, agonizing or dead birds can be detected by line transect methodology without disturbing the birds. Sensitivity of line transects for welfare assessment permitted detection of small variations (below 0.1%) in the incidence of the selected welfare indicators across houses (p<0.0001 to 0.0156), while inter-observer reliability remained consistent. The effect of observer was only detected for the incidence of immobile birds (0.18% \ub1 0.02 vs. 0.22% \ub1 0.03), and for the interaction of observer with farm for the number of dirty birds, where maximum range of variation across farms and observers for dirty birds was of \ub1 0.5%. In addition, bootstrapping analysis indicated that house assessment was stable, independently of the chosen number or transects locations. Our initial results suggest the suitability of this approach for practical on-farm broiler welfare assessment with potential for application to other poultry species, especially those that are difficult to handle such as turkeys. However, further investigations should be conducted to determine the validity of this methodology as compared with the more classical sampling approach

Review of the physiological and pathological welfare indicators applied in turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo)

Concern on animal welfare has become an important issue in Europe for a decade now. In commercial poultry husbandry, there are many trials to standardize the production in order to reduce the economic loss caused by poor welfare at marketing age. As it known, factors such as density, group size, space availability, maturation, lighting, feeding, and transportation can have effects on welfare of turkeys. However, to ensure a better quality of live for the birds as well as the industry as good performance, reducing the mortality and condemnations it is important to have another point of view as different kind of indicators. This paper reviews the available scientific literature related to the turkeys\u2019 welfare according to the main relevant physiopathology indicators by taking into a count whether they are feasible or not for being used. We addressed foot pad dermatitis and breast skin lesions as being the most relevant indicators so far. They may be relevant to improve the welfare assessment indicators of turkeys. However, measurements of corticosterone, enzyme activities, cytokines, and hematological profile seemed to be flourishing indicators to be applied more often. In this way associating the indicators that were previously studied to these new ones, it is assumed that animal, producer, industry and consumer may have a suitable bond between them (poultry chain) according to their different interests

Association between poultry&apos;s lesions in the slaughter line and the transect approach on farms

This is a preliminary study with the aim of validating the transect approach for the assessment of on farm poultry welfare assessment. The objective of the current study is to develop and validate the method to associate major lesions on poultry carcasses noticed in the slaughter line and the main features that observed during the transect approach on the farm. Finding a method for a practical on-farm poultry welfare evaluation could be helpful for industry to improve their returns, but also will help farmers to better manage the flock by improving their welfare, and would benefit consumers and animals. The transect methodology approach was performed in each farm previously. Independent samples of 30- 35 day old birds from three different farms and two rooms within each farm were scored by two persons at the slaughter line after de-feathering. The slaughterhouse provided live and carcass weights, condemnation rate, downgrade, and dead on arrival for each flock. At the slaughter line the evaluation of breast, hock and footpad were performed by tow observers. Observer one scored breast blisters and irritations, while the observer two was responsible for hock burns. Both of them graded together foot pad lesions. The first 60 bird samples from the evaluated flock at the line were not considered, due to the possibility of mixes of birds from the different flocks or farm. Breasts were evaluated with regard to absence (0) or presence of blisters and breast irritations on a scale 1 to 2, depending on the severity of the lesions. Hocks were scored from absence (0) to 4 (severe lesions), according to the Welfare Quality, 2009 protocol. Afterwards, the right feet of 500 birds were randomly separated from the totals coming from evaluated flock and were scored according to the Welfare Quality 2009 protocol with regard to the severity of the wounds on the scale from 0 (no lesions observed) to 4 (the most severe lesions). All these data will be analysed and associated with other findings that were observed during the novel approach of transects studies.The authors are grateful to GRUPO AN, Tajonar, Navarra, Spain and to the Asociaci\uf3n Espa\uf1ola de Avicultura (AECA-WPSA) for their support and for granting access to facilities. AWIN Project n. 266213 FP7-KBBE-2010-

On-farm broiler welfare assessment; Individual versus transect sampling

Current European animal welfare legislation for meat chickens requires standard science-based protocols to assess on-farm welfare. An animal sampling approach has been widely used, but it implies stressful and time demanding catching and handling the birds. A novel transect approach for welfare assessment has advantages as does not require animal handling and is less time consuming. Our objective was to compare both methods based on validated welfare indicators for broilers. We assessed six identically managed commercial houses in Northern Spain, with flock sizes ranging from 13,220 to 27,540. For sampling we collected measures on 25 birds, at five locations within the house, by gently pushing them to portable pen. Measures included: body weight, breast dirtiness, hock and footpad dermatitis, lameness and immobility. Transect observations were conducted by slow walking on randomized paths within each house and recording in a tablet birds showing: immobility, lameness, back dirtiness, sickness, agony and dead. Both methods differed in results, with higher levels of immobility (4%\ub12,3 vs. 0,2%\ub10,02) and lameness, (24,2%\ub14,7 vs. 0,8%\ub10,07) for samplings than for transect observations. Breast dirtiness accounted for 17,8%\ub14,9 in sampling, while back dirtiness in transects was 0,2o/o\ub10,05. We found 35,4%\ub14 of birds with advanced footpad dermatitis and 3,6%\ub11,5 with severe hock bums. In transects sick, agonizing and dead birds accounted for 0,2\ub10,04% of the population. Variable reduction procedure (PCA) revealed lameness and immobility with agony loaded on first component in transect-specific, and breast dirtiness on the second component in sampling-specific analysis, explaining 42,4% and 26,7% of variation. Hock bums with footpad dermatitis created strongest component (30,7% of variation) from sampling indicators indicating need for complementary slaughterhouse checks for transects. Major discrepancies among two assessment methods may be due to possible biased sampling of less mobile birds being more likely to be caught. In addition, the handling procedure may produce fatigue and fear reactions making the birds less likely to move for gait evaluation. It is likely that transect methodology needs further adjustments and refinement to assure that lameness is not overlooked. The current study provided new insights into constraints and advantages of broiler on-farm evaluation