Avian Science Research Centre

Much of our research in this field is conducted under government research grants 

Areas that are covered include:

• Investigating ways of fulfilling the Five Freedoms while maintaining commercially viable systems
• Conducting studies to inform new government policies
• Understanding the factors that affect the behaviour, health and welfare of birds in novel housing systems
• Investigating the effects of high-handling on animal welfare
• Developing new methodologies to assess health and welfare of poultry
• Devising humane methods of stunning, emergency culling and slaughter  

Some recent projects include the following:

• Health and welfare of hens in various designs and colony sizes of enriched cages
• Designing an objective method of assessing gait in meat chickens (broilers), in order to assess the level of lameness in commercial and breeding flocks
• Investigating the most humane methods of culling poultry in the event of a disease outbreak
• Exploring the efficacy of rearing pullets (immature hens) on 100% organic diets without added amino acids, in light of current and forthcoming regulations
• Investigating methods of how to depopulate end-of-lay hens, and making recommendations for improvements

The benefits to be gained include:

• Minimising the financial impact of legislative changes on commercial industries
• Research conducted in close collaboration with industry to ensure the validity of results
• Informing policy 
• Recognition through publication in scientific and trade literature
• Informing the public
• Transfer of knowledge from research into practical application

Final reports of research projects on designing an objective method of assessing gait and methods of depopulating end-of-lay hens can be downloaded using the links below.