Livestock - Poultry

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Commercial Laying Breeds

  • Rhode Island Red
  • Lohmann Brown
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Commercial Meat Breeds

  • e.g., Cornish Cross, Ross 308
  • Lowest cost of live weight produced
  • Higher pwerformance on lower cost feed rations
  • most feed efficient
  • excellent growth rate
  • best broiler uniformity for processing
  • competitve breeder (The Poultry Site)
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Egg Laying Hen Produced Cycle

  • Egg incubation = approx. 21 days
  • Breeding farms = 18-20 weeks
  • Placed into either an enriched battery cage, barn or free ranging system
  • One year = can produce 300 eggs
  • After one-year egg production declines
  • average life span of a chicken = 5-10 years
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Meat Chickens (intensive) Production Cycle

  • live to around 6 weeks of age and grow very fast
  • hatching
  • place into barns at one day old
  • slaughter at age 42 days
  • live weight slaughter approx. 2.2 kilograms
  • 70% usable meat
  • broiler (intensive) chickens
  • barn enriched (intensive) chickens
  • free range chickens
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Meat Chickens: Intensive

  • Fast growing chickens can suffer from fatigue
  • Often lame so walking to feed and water can be painful
  • Spread of disease higher due to close proximity 
  • Produce chickens cheaply and quickly, easy to control environmental conditions
  • Fast growing chickens consume less feed
  • Crowding reduces housing costs and space requirements
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Meat Chickens: Intensive Enriched

  • Compromise between cost to consumer and welfare of chickens
  • Birds have more space and enrichment
  • Slower growing chickens are more active and suffer less lameness
  • Slower growing chickens consume more
  • Still kept inside and under very controlled and artificial conditions
  • Kept in the system longer so slower turn around, meaning higher prices for consumers
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Meat Chickens: Free Range

  • Chickens grow at a slower more natural rate and can enjoy a longer life (at least 8 weeks)
  • Higher welfare systems can generate extra income for rural communities
  • Consume feed made without using artificial fertilisers and pesticides
  • Greater area of land required
  • Extra labour required to complete day-to-day husbandry
  • Free-range chicken is made more expensive
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Laying Hens

  • enriched colony caged hens
  • barn hens
  • free range hens
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Laying Hens: Enriched Colony Caged

  • High stocking levels, beaks clipped to reduce bullying
  • Limited movement available for exercise
  • Environment very controlled and artificial to increase egg production
  • Eggs almost as cheap as barren battery caged systems
  • More space and a little more freedom
  • Able to express natural behaviours such as perching and laying eggs in a nest
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Laying Hens: Barren Battery Cage

  • Cheap eggs
  • Can't exercise, so they consume less feed
  • Crowding means higher production per shed
  • Illegal in teh EU due to poor welfare
  • Cannot dust-bathe, perch, scratch for food, lay eggs in a nest or even stretch their wings
  • Lack of exercise can lead to brittle bones and broken bones when caught for slaughter
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Laying Hens: Barn

  • not free to go outside
  • large numbers of birds so system remains intensive
  • largely controlled environment and artificial environment
  • hens have greater freedom of movement than in a cage
  • can dust-bathe, scratch for food, perch and lay eggs in a nest
  • compromise between cost and welfare
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Laying Hens: Free Range

  • large levels of enrichment and a varied diet
  • able to easily express natural behaviours
  • genereates higher welfare product which is a valuable income
  • eggs are more expensive
  • hens consume more food as moving around more and using more calories
  • hens at risk of predators such as foxes and badgers
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