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In the United States (US), surgical castration of male piglets is typically performed without any form of analgesia. This may raise concerns with the public; however, there is no information regarding current public knowledge on swine industry practices in the US. In this study we gained insight into public knowledge and perception on castration with and without analgesia in comparison to knowledge of industry stakeholders on these same topics. Through an online survey, 119 respondents were asked four questions about castration in the US swine industry. Industry respondents were contacted via social media and networking. The general public sample was accessed through Mechanical Turk. Survey responses were categorised by experience (industry vs public). Industry respondents were more aware of practices compared to the general public. Most public respondents were unaware of castration practices and the lack of analgesia use. Respondents from rural communities were more aware of castration practices than (sub)urban communities and more aware of analgesia use than those from urban communities. Those with more education had greater awareness of castration practices (occurrence not frequency). Based on the results from this first US sample, knowledge on industry practices was especially lacking for public respondents, but also for a minority of industry respondents, indicating opportunities for education and further research on the topic.

Impaired walking ability is one of the most important factors affecting broiler welfare. Routine monitoring of walking ability provides insights in the welfare status of a flock and assists farmers in taking remedial measures at an early stage. Several computer vision techniques have been developed for automated assessment of walking ability, providing an objective and biosecure alternative to the currently more subjective and time-consuming manual assessment of walking ability. However, these techniques mainly focus on assessment of averages at flock level using pixel movement. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the potential of optical flow algorithms to identify flock activity, distribution and walking ability in a commercial setting on levels close to individual monitoring. We used a combination of chicken segmentation and optical flow methods, where chicken contours were first detected and were then used to identify activity, spatial distribution, and gait score distribution (i.e. walking ability) of the flock via optical flow. This is a step towards focusing more on individual chickens in an image and its pixel representation. In addition, we predicted the gait score distribution of the flock, which is a more detailed assessment of broiler walking ability compared to average gait score of the flock, as slight changes in walking ability are more likely to be detected when using the distribution compared to the average score. We found a strong correlation between predicted and observed gait scores (R2 = 0.97), with separate gait scores all having R2 > 0.85. Thus, the algorithm used in this study is a first step to measure broiler walking ability automatically in a commercial setting on a levels close to individual monitoring. These validation results of the developed automatic monitoring of flock activity, distribution and gait score are promising, but further validation is required (e.g. for chickens at a younger age, with very low and very hig

Impacts of environmental complexity on affective states in slow-growing broiler chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) are unknown. Chickens’ performance in judgment bias tests (JBT) can be limited as they are tested individually, causing fear and anxiety. The objectives were to apply a social-pair JBT to assess the effect of environmental complexity on slow-growing broiler chickens` affective states, and assess the impact of fearfulness, anxiety, and chronic stress on JBT performance. Six-hundred Hubbard Redbro broilers were housed in six low-complexity (similar to commercial) or six high-complexity (permanent and temporary enrichments) pens. Twelve chicken pairs were trained (1 pair/pen, n = 24 chickens) using a multimodal approach (visual and spatial cues), with reward and neutral cues of opposing color and location. Three ambiguous cues were tested: near-positive, middle, and near-neutral cues. Approach and pecking behavior were recorded. Eighty-three percent of chickens (20/24) were successfully trained in 13 days. Fearfulness, anxiety, and chronic stress did not impact chickens’ performance. Chickens successfully discriminated between cues. Low-complexity chickens approached the middle cue faster than high-complexity chickens, indicating that they were in a more positive affective state. The environmental complexity provided in this study did not improve affective states in slow-growing broiler chickens compared to a control. A social-pair JBT resulted in excellent learning and testing outcomes in slow-growing broilers.

A silvopasture system intentionally integrates trees, forages, and livestock, allowing dual land use. These systems can provide high-quality habitat for broiler chickens; however, such systems have not been widely adopted by the broiler industry in the United States. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of silvopasture versus open pasture access on fearfulness and leg health in fast-growing broiler chickens. A total of 886 mixed-sex Ross 708 chicks in Experiment 1 (Exp 1) and 648 chicks in Experiment 2 (Exp 2) were housed in coops and had access to 16 (Exp 1) or 12 (Exp 2) 125m2 silvopasture plots (x̄ = 32% canopy cover) or open pasture plots (no canopy cover) from day 24 of age. Fearfulness was measured using a tonic immobility test (tonic immobility duration), and leg health was assessed by quantifying footpad dermatitis, hock burns, gait, and performing a latency-to-lie test on days 37-39 of age. Birds in the silvopasture treatment were less fearful than birds in the open pasture treatment. Overall, birds in both silvopasture and open pasture systems had excellent leg health. Silvopasture birds had lower footpad dermatitis scores than open pasture birds. Silvopasture birds tended to have worse gait than open pasture birds in Exp 1, but not in Exp 2. Hock burn scores and latency-to-lie did not differ between treatments in Exp 1 or Exp 2. Raising birds in silvopasture reduced fear and improved footpad health compared to birds raised in open pastures, which indicates that silvopasture systems provide some benefits for affective state and leg health in fast-growing broilers.

Perches can enhance laying hen welfare, but their effectiveness might be age-dependent. We investigated early and late perch access effects on anxiety and fear in pullets through attention bias (AB) and tonic immobility (TI) tests. Pullets (n = 728) were raised with or without multi-level perches: CP (continuous perch access: 0–37 weeks), EP (early perch access: 0–17 weeks), LP (late perch access: 17–37 weeks), and NP (no perch access). AB was conducted in weeks 21 and 37 (n = 84/week), and TI was performed in weeks 20, 25, and 37 (n = 112/week). CP hens fed quicker than EP, LP, and NP in AB at weeks 21 and 37 (p ≤ 0.05). CP and NP feeding latencies were stable, while EP and LP fed faster at week 37 (p ≤ 0.05). CP had the shortest TI at week 20 (p < 0.05). CP and LP had the shortest TI in weeks 25 and 37 (all p ≤ 0.05). Unlike NP, CP reduced anxiety and fear. Adding perches during laying (LP) raised anxiety at week 21, adapting by week 37, and removing pre-laying perches (EP) worsened fear at weeks 20 and 25 and anxiety at week 21, recovering by week 37. Adding or removing perches prior to the lay phase increased fear and anxiety, an effect that disappeared by week 37 of age. Our study indicates that continuous perch access benefits animal welfare compared to no perch access at all.

The objective was to evaluate the impacts of a complex environment and stocking density on Ross 708 broiler chicken behaviors. Eight pens contained either high complexity (HC) or low complexity (LC) environments, and high (HD) or low (LD) density. Through focal-animal sampling, the frequency and duration of behaviors were recorded continuously for 5 min at two timepoints for one day in weeks 2, 4, and 7. Birds were active for 30% of the observed time, with birds showing more activity in HC compared with LC. Birds in HC pens spent more time preening and foraging than birds in LC pens, which was interpreted as a positive outcome. Dustbathing and play were not impacted by complexity, possibly due to the observation method. Birds were more frequently active at HD compared with LD, but did not spend more time being active, suggesting disturbances. Birds foraged, drank, and ate less frequently in HD compared with LD, presumably because birds had more difficulty accessing resources. Activity and active behaviors reduced as birds aged, while preening frequency increased, possibly due to frustration, but this was not confirmed. Perching was unaffected by age, showing a persistent motivation to perform the behavior. Our results indicate that a complex environment provides positive stimulation for foraging, locomotion, preening, and overall activity. Despite reduced activity, many benefits of the tested environmental complexity and low density persisted as birds aged.

Providing environmental enrichments that increase environmental complexity can benefit poultry welfare. This Poultry Science Association symposium paper is structured around four themes on 1) poultry preferences and affective states 2) species-specific behavior, including play behavior and the relationship between behavior, activity level and walking ability, 3) environmental enrichment and its relationship with indicators of welfare, and 4) a case study focusing on the application of enrichments in commercial broiler chicken production. For effective enrichment strategies, the birds’ perspective matters most, and we need to consider individual variation, social dynamics, and previous experience when assessing these strategies. Play behavior can be a valuable indicator of positive affect, and while we do not yet know how much play would be optimal, absence of play suggests a welfare deficit. Activity levels and behavior can be improved by environmental modifications and prior research has shown that the activity level of broilers can be increased, at least temporarily, by increasing the environmental complexity. However, more research on impacts of enrichments on birds’ resilience, on birds in commercial conditions, and on slow(er)-growing strains is needed. Finally, incorporating farmers’ expertise can greatly benefit enrichment design and implementation on commercial farms.

Environmental enrichment can increase the occurrence of natural behavior and improve leg health and other animal welfare outcomes in broiler chickens. This study aimed to assess the effects of three environmental enrichments, specifically hay bales, step platforms, and laser lights, on subclinical spondylolisthesis prevalence, productivity, behavior, and gait of broiler chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus). Twenty-four hundred day-old male Ross (R) AP95 chicks from a commercial hatchery were used in a completely randomized design with four treatments and four replicate pens per treatment. Pens contained either a Control (C) treatment, an environment similar to a commercial broiler chicken system without environmental enrichments, or an environment with either additional hay bales (HB), additional step platforms (SP), or additional laser lights (LL). Performance, yield, behavior (frequencies), gait score, and subclinical spondylolisthesis prevalences were assessed. When raised with SP or LL access, fewer chickens had subclinical spondylolisthesis than chickens without enrichments (C) or with HB access. Chickens with access to SP exhibited higher wing yield and less abdominal fat than animals from the C group. Chickens from the LL and HB treatments explored more and rested less frequently than animals from the C and SP treatments. As chickens aged, they became less active, exploring less and increasing resting and comfort behaviors. Treatments did not affect gait. Gait was not associated with subclinical spondylolisthesis prevalence. Environmental enrichments benefitted chicken health (subclinical spondylolisthesis) and behavior (exploration) without negative consequences for performance and yield.

The use of positive reinforcement training has been shown to improve the human- horse relationships, but the equestrian community has been slow to replace traditional techniques with positive reinforcement training. Horse owners and trainers might be willing to add positive reinforcement training sessions to their routine, even if they are unwilling to change their primary training methods. For this study, we examined whether the addition of positive reinforcement training, in an otherwise unchanged routine, would have behavioral effects on a group of school horses. The implementation of positive reinforcement sessions increased contact seeking behavior (both proximity to and physical touch) with the trainer, but not a stranger. Horses showed similar perception in value of positive reinforcement sessions and food-toy enrichment sessions through increased anticipatory behavior, measured by behavior transition rate, compared to a control group. Providing school horses access to regular food-toy sessions is a good way to provide enrichment, but it does not increase the bond between the horse and trainer like regular positive reinforcement training sessions.

Commercial housing conditions may contribute to chronic negative stress in broiler chickens, reducing their animal welfare. The objective of this study was to determine how secretory (fecal) and plasma immunoglobulin-A (IgA) levels in fast-growing broilers respond to positive and negative housing conditions. In three replicated experiments, male Ross 708 broilers (n = 1650/experiment) were housed in a 2 × 2 factorial study of high or low environmental complexity and high or low stocking density. In experiments 1 and 3 but not in experiment 2, high complexity tended to positively impact day 48 plasma IgA concentrations. When three experiments were combined, high complexity positively impacted day 48 plasma IgA concentrations. Stocking density and the complexity × density interaction did not impact day 48 plasma IgA concentrations. Environmental complexity and the complexity × density interaction did not impact day 48 secretory IgA concentrations. A high stocking density negatively impacted day 48 secretory IgA concentrations overall but not in individual experiments. These results suggest that environmental complexity decreased chronic stress, while a high stocking density increased chronic stress. Thus, plasma IgA levels increased under high-complexity housing conditions (at day 48), and secretory IgA levels (at day 48) decreased under high-density conditions, suggesting that chronic stress differed among treatments. Therefore, these measures may be useful for quantifying chronic stress but only if the statistical power is high. Future research should replicate these findings under similar and different housing conditions to confirm the suitability of IgA as a measure of chronic stress in broiler chickens.

Routine monitoring of broiler chickens provides insights in the welfare status of a flock, helps to guarantee minimum defined levels of animal welfare and assists farmers in taking remedial measures at an early stage. Computer vision techniques offer exciting potential for routine and automated assessment of broiler welfare, providing an objective and biosecure alternative to the current more subjective and time-consuming methods. However, the current state-of-the-art computer vision solutions for assessing broiler welfare are not sufficient to allow the transition to fully automated monitoring in a commercial environment. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the potential of computer vision algorithms for detection and resource use monitoring of broilers housed in both experimental and commercial settings, while also assessing the potential for scalability and resource-efficient implementation of such solutions. This study used a combination of detection and resource use monitoring methods, where broilers were first detected using Mask R-CNN and were then assigned to a specific resource zone using zone-based classifiers. Three detection models were proposed using different annotation datasets: model A with annotated broilers from a research facility, model B with annotated broilers from a commercial farm, and model A+B where annotations from both environments were combined. The algorithms developed for individual broiler detection performed well for both the research facility (model A, F1 score > 0.99) and commercial farm (model A+B, F1 score > 0.83) test data with an intersection over union of 0.75. The subsequent monitoring of resource use at the commercial farm using model A+B for broiler detection, also performed very well for the feeders, bale and perch (F1 score > 0.93), but not for the drinkers (F1 score = 0.28), which was likely caused by our evaluation method. Thus, the algorithms used in this study are a first step to measure resou

Routine monitoring of broiler chickens provides insights in the welfare status of a flock, helps to guarantee minimum defined levels of animal welfare and assists farmers in taking remedial measures at an early stage. Computer vision techniques offer exciting potential for routine and automated assessment of broiler welfare, providing an objective and biosecure alternative to the current more subjective and time-consuming methods. However, the current state-of-the-art computer vision solutions for assessing broiler welfare are not sufficient to allow the transition to fully automated monitoring in a commercial environment. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the potential of computer vision algorithms for detection and resource use monitoring of broilers housed in both experimental and commercial settings, while also assessing the potential for scalability and resource-efficient implementation of such solutions. This study used a combination of detection and resource use monitoring methods, where broilers were first detected using Mask R-CNN and were then assigned to a specific resource zone using zone-based classifiers. Three detection models were proposed using different annotation datasets: model A with annotated broilers from a research facility, model B with annotated broilers from a commercial farm, and model A+B where annotations from both environments were combined. The algorithms developed for individual broiler detection performed well for both the research facility (model A, F1 score > 0.99) and commercial farm (model A+B, F1 score > 0.83) test data with an intersection over union of 0.75. The subsequent monitoring of resource use at the commercial farm using model A+B for broiler detection, also performed very well for the feeders, bale and perch (F1 score > 0.93), but not for the drinkers (F1 score = 0.28), which was likely caused by our evaluation method. Thus, the algorithms used in this study are a first step to measure resource use a

Environmental condition, such as environmental complexity or stocking density, can directly or indirectly influence animal emotion and ultimately, affective state. Affective states of animals can be assessed through judgement bias tests, evaluating responses to ambiguous situations. In this study, we aimed to determine whether environmental complexity and stocking density impacted rainbow trout affective state. Rainbow trout (n = 108) were housed in recirculating aquaculture systems under commercial conditions while trained at tank-level to discriminate between a positively reinforced chamber (feed) in one location and a negative chamber (positive punishment; chase by net for 1 s) in the opposing location. Fish from successful tanks (two out of five tanks) were then housed in treatment tanks of either high- or low- environmental complexity at either high (165 fish/m3) or low (69 fish/m3) stocking density. Trained fish were tested for latencies to approach three intermediate, ambiguous chambers. Fish housed in high-density tanks were faster to enter all chambers than those housed in low-density tanks (8.5 s vs. 15.2 s; P = 0.001), with faster entries into the positive (7.4 s vs. 15.2 s; P = 0.02) and near-negative chambers (10.2 s vs. 17.4 s; P = 0.006), suggesting that these fish were more optimistic to receive a feed reward. Tank complexity did not affect test outcomes. No differences between treatments were observed between body weight, length, and plasma cortisol. Overall, rainbow trout are capable of discriminating between cues during a judgement bias test and fish housed in high-density environments respond more optimistically in ambiguous situations compared to fish in low-density environments.

The scientific community needs objective measures to appropriately assess animal welfare. The study objective was to assess the impact of housing system on novel physiological and behavioral measurements of animal welfare for laying hens, including secretory and plasma Immunoglobulin (IgA; immune function), feather corticosterone (chronic stress), and attention bias testing (ABT; anxiety), in addition to the well-validated tonic immobility test (TI; fearfulness). To test this, 184 Bovan brown hens were housed in 28 conventional cages (3 birds/cage) and 4 enriched pens (25 birds/pen). Feces, blood, and feathers were collected 4 times between week 22 and 43 to quantify secretory and plasma IgA and feather corticosterone concentrations. TI tests and ABT were performed once. Hens that were from cages tended to show longer TI, had increased feather corticosterone, and decreased secretory IgA at 22 weeks of age. The caged hens fed quicker, and more hens fed during the ABT compared to the penned hens. Hens that were in conventional cages showed somewhat poorer welfare outcomes than the hens in enriched pens, as indicated by increased chronic stress, decreased immune function at 22 weeks of age but no other ages, somewhat increased fear, but reduced anxiety. Overall, these novel markers show some appropriate contrast between housing treatments and may be useful in an animal welfare assessment context for laying hens. More research is needed to confirm these findings.

Efficacious euthanasia by applying man-ual cervical dislocation can be difficult on large and mature poultry. The challenge with using manual cervical dislocation is that the strength required to hold heavy poultry and swiftly apply cervical dislocation can be phys-ically impossible for most people. Therefore, alternative methods of euthanasia are needed for mature and large poultry. Mechanical cervical dislocation using the Koech-ner Euthanizing Device (KED), captive bolt using the Turkey Euthanasia Device (TED), carbon dioxide (CO2), and electrical euthanasia were evaluated for use on 65-wk-old broiler breeders at flock termination. Fol-lowing application of each method, physiological reflexes including the eye nictitating membrane reflex, mouth gaping, and body movement, broken skin, blood loss, kill success, time to cessation of heartbeat, and blood plasma corticosterone levels were assessed. Birds euthanized using the KED had longer response durations for eye nictitating membrane (91 s) and reflexive mouth gaping (161 s) com-pared to TED, CO2, and electrical euthanasia (0-7 s). Body movement durations were also longer for KED (214 s) and TED (209 s) than for CO2 and electrical euthana-sia (0-8 s). The highest percentages of broken skin (93%) and blood loss (96%) were observed for TED, followed by KED (71%, 68%), then CO2 (0%, 6%) and electrical euthanasia (0%, 3%). No significant differences (P = 0.1781) were observed for kill success rates with 98% for KED, 100% for TED, 97% for CO2, and 100% for electri-cal euthanasia at 4-min. Time to heartbeat cessation did not differ between KED (659 s), TED (427 s), or CO2 (583 s) euthanasia methods. No heartbeat was detected following electrical euthanasia. Blood plasma corticoste-rone levels did not differ between preeuthanasia or post -euthanasia from any of the methods applied. Based on these results each euthanasia method is acceptable for use with broiler breeders.

The humane killing of individual broiler chickens on-farm requires a minimum of suffering. In this regard, rapid and irreversible loss of consciousness are important determinants. This can be verified by cerebral and spinal reflexes. Also, on-farm feasibility determines whether producers will apply the method. The aim of the study was to compare the effectiveness and animal welfare impact of two different methods for killing individual broilers of varying ages (2, 4, and 6 weeks): manual cervical dislocation (CD) and captive bolt (CB). The evaluation of CD and CB was based on effectiveness and on time to onset (convulsions) or cessation (pain response, pupillary light reflex, convulsions, heartbeat) of non-invasive indicators. In addition, a pilot study was conducted on-farm to assess the feasibility of two alternative methods, CB and nitrogen gasification (N2), and to survey farmers’ opinions on them. The onset of convulsions was almost immediate for both methods in the first study. No differences between CD and CB were observed for the cessation of pain response for chickens at age of 2 weeks (5.0 and 7.5 s, respectively) and 6 weeks (14.0 and 14.1 s, respectively). However, at 4 weeks a longer pain response was measured after CD (11.3 s) than after CB (4.7 s). For the three age categories, the pupillary light reflex disappeared later after CD (54.9 - 80.7 s) compared to CB (8.3 - 13.7 s). The same was observed for cessation of convulsions in 2- and 6-week-old chickens (185.3 and 172.0 s for CD and 79.0 and 82.9 s for CB). This suggests that brain death occurred faster after CB compared to CD. No difference between the methods was found for the cessation of the heartbeat. After the pilot study, the producers preferred N2 over CB in terms of animal-friendliness, time-efficiency, ease of use, and effectiveness. However, both methods were found rather expensive and required some experience. CB and N2 are good killing alternatives to CD due to rapid and irreversible i

The objective was to determine broiler chicken behavioral differences in response to novel flooring treatments. Broilers (n = 182) were housed in 14 pens (a random subset from a larger-scale study including 42 pens), with 13 birds/pen. One of seven flooring treatments were randomly allocated to 14 pens (2 pens per treatment). The flooring treatments (provided from day 1 {1} or day 29 {29}) included regularly replaced shavings (POS), a mat with 1% povidone-iodine solution (MAT), and the iodine mat placed on a partially slatted floor (SLAT). In addition, a negative control treatment was included with birds kept on used litter from day 1 (NEG). Behavior was recorded in weeks 1, 2, 5, and 6. In week 5, treatments affected the behavioral repertoire (p ≤ 0.035). Birds in POS-1 showed more locomoting, preening and activity overall compared to MAT and/or SLAT treatments. Birds in POS-29 showed more drinking, foraging, preening and overall activity than birds in MAT and/or SLAT treatments. In week 6, birds in the POS-1 treatment spent more time foraging compared to birds in all MAT and SLAT treatments (p ≤ 0.030). In addition, birds in the POS-1 treatment spent more time preening than birds in the MAT-1 treatment (p = 0.046). Our results indicate that access to partially slatted flooring and/or disinfectant mats does not benefit broiler chicken welfare in terms of their ability to express highly motivated behaviors. Access to clean, regularly replaced litter is beneficial for broiler chicken welfare in terms of their ability to express their normal behavioral repertoire.