Most of the new products and services represent improvements of existing
equipment or services, but there are also some real innovations. These
innovations are either related to improved efficiency or to meeting demands for
better food safety and animal welfare.
This may hardly be surprising,
but when we think about improved animal welfare, people from inside and outside
the poultry still have different opinions about what is or is not good for a
bird's wellbeing.
A recent study by the Dutch ProFarmers group into
various production systems for table eggs showed that hens kept in cages have
the best survival rate, the lowest feed conversion and produce more eggs than
most of the alternative housing systems.
These results, gathered from
more than 800,000 birds born in 2005, may not be 100% statistically valid, but
they show once again that birds kept in confined systems do not seem to perform
better than those kept in free-range systems.
So the question arises
again: are the things that human beings think are good welfare for chickens the
same things that chickens actually like?
The increasing number of avian
influenza cases around the world show regular links with backyard or free-range
farming. This puts the consumer demand for better bird welfare, often translated
into free-range keeping, into a different spotlight.
It would be wise
for those who pull the strings in this matter to rethink where the poultry
industry should head. Several companies present at VIV Europe (that may not
comply with European politicians' preferences on the traditional way of
considering animal welfare) surely meet the requirements for food safety, animal
wellbeing and disease prevention.
And that could be
more important than satisfying human emotions.
