The complex world of broiler breeder welfare issues

Many broiler and broiler-breeder traits are easily defined and measured. For example, we can define body weight by the age it is measured and the unit of measurement. Once we’ve defined the age, nearly any type of scale (or analytical balance) gets the job done. Similarly, egg production can be defined by the length of the production period or egg production from the start of lay. All that is required to measure egg production is good record keeping. Composite traits such as feed conversion ratio, meat yield, or percent hatch of set eggs may require measurement of two things and some math but are otherwise easy to define and calculate. Animal well-being, however, defies a single and simple definition.  Read more