During USPOULTRY’s 2021 Live Production, Welfare and Biosecurity Webinar, Kay Johnson Smith, president and CEO of the Animal Agriculture Alliance, discussed animal rights activists and other groups targeting animal agriculture. Johnson Smith remarked that “animal rights activism is big business, generating $595-plus billion in income annually.” She elaborated that the animal activists’ agenda is focused on veganism and reviewed the various tactics that are being used by these groups to try to discredit and distract the agriculture industry.
Dr. Karen Christensen, senior director of animal welfare at Tyson Foods, provided an update on the National Chicken Council’s (NCC) Broiler Welfare Guidelines and Audit Checklist revisions, in addition to discussing broiler enrichment programs. Christensen observed that the academic and industry professionals involved in the NCC Broiler Welfare Guidelines and Audit Checklist process have finished the review and are now starting on the Pullet/Breeder Guidelines and Audit Checklist. She emphasized that the focus is centered on animal outcomes, key welfare indicators and establishing a standardized scoring scheme.
As part of her broiler enrichment programs presentation, Christensen commented that “there is more and more interest in adding enrichments to the environment to provide better welfare space for the birds.” She discussed transitioning from the five freedoms to the five domains, which include nutrition, the environment, health, behavior and mental state.
The five domains provide a strong basis for a systematic, structured, comprehensive welfare assessment. The assessment addresses the continuum of animal welfare, as opposed to presence or absence, and aligns with the use of outcome-based metrics and the focus on continuous improvement. Christensen mentioned that repeated assessments enable monitoring of the success of interventions and allows grading of both welfare compromise and enhancement. She said the “five domains allow us to really focus on the mental state of the animals.”
An “Emergency Preparedness and Depopulation Overview” was provided by Dr. Kate Barger-Weathers, director of world animal welfare with Cobb-Vantress. She began her presentation by asking the question, “Are you ready for the unexpected?” Barger-Weathers proceeded to provide an overview of the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Humane Endings Guidelines, reviewed the 2020-2021 depopulation challenges for food animals and gave an update on poultry-related depopulation resources and research.
