Investigating the welfare of laying hens in the conventional cage and floor productionsystems by Welfare Quality®

• Main Authors: Ting-Yi Wang, 王亭懿
• Other Authors: 李淵百
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/7s9358

碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 動物科學系所 === 103 === Concerning animal welfare had become a trend around the world. Several welfare assessment systems developed can, in addition to providing complete assessment of animal welfare to the farm keepers, serve as a reference for consumers to purchase animal products. This study selected Welfare Quality® from the one of three famous welfare assessment systems to compare laying hens’ welfare status under traditional cage and floor production systems in order to discuss the appropriate egg layer production system in Taiwan. As the fractional conversion method of laying hens had not yet provided, therefore, the result will be converted into scores by the proposed method provided by the Wageningen University Research Centre. Laying hens were housed in either cages or floor, and the welfare assessment were carried out at 41 and 72 weeks of age which respectively represent the welfare status at the middle and the end of egg production period. The egg quality was determined at 65 and 72 weeks of age to study the effect of production system on the egg quality. Results indicate that cage system had higher scores in freedom from hunger, comfortable temperature, and social behavior. The performance of the social behavior of the cage system was better, but it’s validity needs further consideration, since the relationship between humans and animals can’t be measured in caged hens. But for other standards, the floor system was better overall. For the egg quality, the eggs laid in floor system were heavier but inferior for freshness due to higher room temperature. Welfare Quality® can be used in a variety of systems, but there were some specific measurements can’t fully applied in cage because it had been banned in EU. Therefore, these score still needs to be studied in the future. That is the reason why Welfare Quality® might be unable to evaluate the welfare status of every local production system, but it can be used for rating in the floor system.