Indicators and Assessment Methods of Poultry Welfare

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Welfare".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 8426

Special Issue Editors

1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin 150030, China
2. Key Laboratory of Swine Facilities Engineering, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Harbin 150030, China
Interests: behavior; welfare; pig; poultry; alternative farming system
Animal Science, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
Interests: precision poultry farming; poultry environment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is widely agreed upon that a comprehensive, multi-indicator system for evaluating indicators of animal welfare is needed to assess animal well-being, rather than a single-indicator system animal-based measures (ABMs) has been used to assess poultry welfare (including broilers, laying hens and turkeys, etc.) on farms and in labs. With advances in computer vision techniques and artificial intelligence (AI), a welfare assessment that does not require direct contact with poultry has been developed to estimate the state of individual birds or whole flocks through monitoring diet status, detecting sick behaviors, etc. 

We are inviting original research and manuscripts related to indicators or methods for assessing poultry welfare, especially physiological, immune or psychological aspects. Papers on AI technological methods are welcome, as are review articles.

Prof. Dr. Jun Bao
Dr. Yang Zhao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • poultry
  • welfare
  • indicator
  • assessment
  • behavior
  • physiology
  • immunity
  • adaptation
  • artificial intelligence
  • intelligence technology

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 3481 KiB  
Article
The Effects of Mild Disturbances on Sleep Behaviour in Laying Hens
by Endre Putyora, Sarah Brocklehurst, Frank Tuyttens and Victoria Sandilands
Animals 2023, 13(7), 1251; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13071251 - 04 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2006
Abstract
The positive welfare of commercial animals presents many benefits, making the accurate assessment of welfare important. Assessments frequently use behaviour to determine welfare state; however, nighttime behaviours are often ignored. Sleep behaviour may offer new insights into welfare assessments. This study aimed to [...] Read more.
The positive welfare of commercial animals presents many benefits, making the accurate assessment of welfare important. Assessments frequently use behaviour to determine welfare state; however, nighttime behaviours are often ignored. Sleep behaviour may offer new insights into welfare assessments. This study aimed to establish a baseline for sleep behaviour in laying hens and to then apply mild short-term disturbances and observe the subsequent effects. Twelve laying hens were divided into four batches and were surgically implanted with electroencephalogram (EEG) devices to record their brain activity. The batches were subjected to undisturbed, disturbed and recovery types of nights. Disturbed nights consisted of systematic sequences of disturbance application (wind, 90 dB noise or 20 lux light) applied one at a time for 5 min every 30 min from 21:00 to 03:00 (lights off period: 19:00–05:00). Sleep state was scored using EEG data and behaviour data from infrared cameras. Over all the types of night hens engaged in both SWS (58%) and REM sleep (18%) during lights off. When applied, the disturbances were effective at altering the amounts of wakefulness and SWS (Time × Type of Night, p < 0.001, p = 0.017, respectively), whereas REM sleep was unaltered (p = 0.540). There was no evidence of carry-over effects over the following day or night. Laying hens may be resilient to short-term sleep disruption by compensating for this in the same night, suggesting that these disturbances do not impact their long-term welfare (i.e., over days). Sleep behaviour potentially offers a unique means of assessing an aspect of animal welfare that, to date, has been poorly studied. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indicators and Assessment Methods of Poultry Welfare)
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11 pages, 1404 KiB  
Article
Validation of Methods for Assessment of Dust Levels in Layer Barns
by Solène Mousqué, Frédérique Mocz and Anja B. Riber
Animals 2023, 13(5), 783; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13050783 - 21 Feb 2023
Viewed by 970
Abstract
The dust level is included in the animal welfare legislation of the European Union, implying assessment of dust levels during veterinary welfare inspections. This study aimed to develop a valid and feasible method for measuring dust levels in poultry barns. Dust levels were [...] Read more.
The dust level is included in the animal welfare legislation of the European Union, implying assessment of dust levels during veterinary welfare inspections. This study aimed to develop a valid and feasible method for measuring dust levels in poultry barns. Dust levels were assessed in 11 layer barns using six methods: light scattering measurement, the dust sheet test with durations of 1 h and 2–3 h, respectively, visibility assessment, deposition assessment, and a tape test. As a reference, gravimetric measurements were obtained – a method known to be accurate but unsuitable for veterinary inspection. The dust sheet test 2–3 h showed the highest correlation with the reference method with the data points scattered closely around the regression line and the slope being highly significant (p = 0.00003). In addition, the dust sheet test 2–3 h had the highest adjusted R2 (0.9192) and the lowest RMSE (0.3553), indicating a high capability of predicting the true concentration value of dust in layer barns. Thus, the dust sheet test with a test duration of 2–3 h is a valid method for assessing dust levels. A major challenge is the test duration as 2–3 h is longer than most veterinary inspections. Nevertheless, results showed that potentially, with some modifications to the scoring scale, the dust sheet test may be reduced to 1 h without losing validity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indicators and Assessment Methods of Poultry Welfare)
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22 pages, 5942 KiB  
Article
Feather Damage Monitoring System Using RGB-Depth-Thermal Model for Chickens
by Xiaomin Zhang, Yanning Zhang, Jinfeng Geng, Jinming Pan, Xinyao Huang and Xiuqin Rao
Animals 2023, 13(1), 126; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13010126 - 28 Dec 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1897
Abstract
Feather damage is a continuous health and welfare challenge among laying hens. Infrared thermography is a tool that can evaluate the changes in the surface temperature, derived from an inflammatory process that would make it possible to objectively determine the depth of the [...] Read more.
Feather damage is a continuous health and welfare challenge among laying hens. Infrared thermography is a tool that can evaluate the changes in the surface temperature, derived from an inflammatory process that would make it possible to objectively determine the depth of the damage to the dermis. Therefore, the objective of this article was to develop an approach to feather damage assessment based on visible light and infrared thermography. Fusing information obtained from these two bands can highlight their strengths, which is more evident in the assessment of feather damage. A novel pipeline was proposed to reconstruct the RGB-Depth-Thermal maps of the chicken using binocular color cameras and a thermal infrared camera. The process of stereo matching based on binocular color images allowed for a depth image to be obtained. Then, a heterogeneous image registration method was presented to achieve image alignment between thermal infrared and color images so that the thermal infrared image was also aligned with the depth image. The chicken image was segmented from the background using a deep learning-based network based on the color and depth images. Four kinds of images, namely, color, depth, thermal and mask, were utilized as inputs to reconstruct the 3D model of a chicken with RGB-Depth-Thermal maps. The depth of feather damage can be better assessed with the proposed model compared to the 2D thermal infrared image or color image during both day and night, which provided a reference for further research in poultry farming. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indicators and Assessment Methods of Poultry Welfare)
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10 pages, 1752 KiB  
Article
Energy Assessment from Broiler Chicks’ Vocalization Might Help Improve Welfare and Production
by Erica Pereira, Irenilza de Alencar Nääs, André Henrique Ivale, Rodrigo Garófallo Garcia, Nilsa Duarte da Silva Lima and Danilo Florentino Pereira
Animals 2023, 13(1), 15; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13010015 - 20 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1616
Abstract
Vocalization seems to be a viable source of signal for assessing broiler welfare. However, it may require an understanding of the birds’ signals, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The delivery of calls with a specific set of acoustic features must be understood to assess [...] Read more.
Vocalization seems to be a viable source of signal for assessing broiler welfare. However, it may require an understanding of the birds’ signals, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The delivery of calls with a specific set of acoustic features must be understood to assess the broiler’s well-being. The present study aimed to analyze broiler chick vocalization through the sounds emitted during social isolation and understand what would be the flock size where the chicks present the smallest energy loss in vocalizing. The experiments were carried out during the first 3 days of growth, and during the trial, chicks received feed and water ad libitum. A total of 30 1-day-old chicks Cobb® breed were acquired at a commercial hatching unit. The birds were tested from 1 to 3 days old. A semi-anechoic chamber was used to record the vocalization with a unidirectional microphone connected to a digital recorder. We placed a group of 15 randomly chosen chicks inside the chamber and recorded the peeping sound, and the assessment was conducted four times with randomly chosen birds. We recorded the vocalization for 2 min and removed the birds sequentially stepwise until only one bird was left inside the semi-anechoic chamber. Each audio signal recorded during the 40 s was chosen randomly for signal extraction and analysis. Fast Fourier transform (FFT) was used to extract the acoustic features and the energy emitted during the vocalization. Using data mining, we compared three classification models to predict the rearing condition (classes distress and normal). The results show that birds’ vocalization differed when isolated and in a group. Results also indicate that the energy spent in vocalizing varies depending on the size of the flock. When isolated, the chicks emit a high-intensity sound, “alarm call”, which uses high energy. In contrast, they spent less energy when flocked in a group, indicating good well-being when the flock was 15 chicks. The weight of birds influenced the amount of signal energy. We also found that the most effective classifier model was the Random Forest, with an accuracy of 85.71%, kappa of 0.73, and cross-entropy of 0.2. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indicators and Assessment Methods of Poultry Welfare)
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17 pages, 601 KiB  
Article
The Effects of Providing Outdoor Access to Broilers in the Tropics on Their Behaviour and Stress Responses
by Rubí E. Sánchez-Casanova, Luis Sarmiento-Franco and Clive J. C. Phillips
Animals 2022, 12(15), 1917; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12151917 - 27 Jul 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1319
Abstract
The effects of outdoor access, stocking density, and age on broiler behavior, stress, and health indicators in a tropical climate were assessed over two seasons, winter and summer. Two hundred and forty Cobb500 male chickens were allocated to one of four treatments, with [...] Read more.
The effects of outdoor access, stocking density, and age on broiler behavior, stress, and health indicators in a tropical climate were assessed over two seasons, winter and summer. Two hundred and forty Cobb500 male chickens were allocated to one of four treatments, with six replicates of ten birds in each: low stocking density indoors with outdoor access (LO); high stocking density indoors with outdoor access (HO); low stocking density indoors without outdoor access (LI); and high stocking density indoors without outdoor access (HI). Scan sampling was used to record their behavior both indoors and outdoors. At 28 and 42 days old, blood samples were obtained to determine the heterophil to lymphocyte (H/L) ratio. At 42 days old, chickens were culled and inspected for footpad dermatitis (FPD), and bone quality was examined. Their spleens and bursas of Fabricius were collected and weighed, relative to carcass weight (RW). A factorial analysis was used to test the effects of season (winter or summer), outdoor access (with or without), stocking density (low: 5 animals/m2 or high: 10 animals/m2), and age (28 or 42 days) on the behavior and stress and health indicators. There were no major effects of providing outdoor access on behavior, except that resting was reduced by providing outdoor access to older birds and those at low stocking densities inside. Resting was also greater in indoor and high-density treatments during winter. The bursa of Fabricius was heavier in summer in outdoor birds. The tibia bones were shorter in the outdoor birds. Heterophil numbers were greater in the outdoor treatments in summer but not in winter. These results indicate that outdoor access can increase activity in some situations, and potentially increase bone strength, but it may also increase the risk of stress, particularly heat stress in summer. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indicators and Assessment Methods of Poultry Welfare)
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