The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Study into how stress can affect laying hens
POULTRY: SRUC to take part in European-wide research project in bid to boost welfare and identify best practice
Scottish researchers are involved in a pioneering project to improve the welfare of laying hens by studying how stress affects their brains.
Scientists at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) are involved in the European-wide Chickenstress European Training Network, which sets out to help egg producers attain the best possible welfare standards for their chickens.
The SRUC team will look at sleep behaviour in laying hens and how it is modified by stress and various different housing environments.
“Shoppers consistently ask for chickens to be kept in the highest possible welfare conditions and in Europe in 2012 this led to a ban on battery cages,” said Dr Tom Smulders, reader in evolutionary neuroscience at Newcastle University, who is leading the £3.5 million project.
“However, while this was introduced with the best of intentions with an eye
“We still don’t know what is best for laying hens in these large-group housing systems...
DR TOM SMULDERS
to improving welfare, unexpected problems have occurred with alternative production systems.”
He said 14 international studies, involving world experts and industry partners, will take place over the next four years to ascertain what factors contribute to stress response and resilience in poultry.
“We still don’t know what is best for laying hens in these large-group housing systems and it is difficult to ask the chickens,” said Dr Smulders.
“We will study how stress affects the brain and use this knowledge to identify best practice.
“We don’t know, for example, how the environment in which they are reared affects how well they adapt to the free-range systems they will be housed in during adulthood, nor how hatching conditions affect their ability to deal with novel situations later in life.
“These are the kind of welfare questions we want to answer with this project.”