How Are Information Technologies Addressing Broiler Welfare? A Systematic Review Based on the Welfare Quality® Assessment

Rios, Heitor Vieira; Waquil, Paulo Dabdab; Carvalho, Patrícia Soster de; Norton, Tomás

doi:10.3390/su12041413

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…Prior to the systematic literature search, an initial non-systematic literature search was performed by two researchers independently. This initial search was inspired by the concept map used by Rios et al, investigating ITs for welfare assessment in broilers [11]. After the initial search, the two researchers created in collaboration the concept map used for the systematic literature search as presented in Table 1.…”

Section: Systematic Literature Searchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information Technologies for Welfare Monitoring in Pigs and Their Relation to Welfare Quality®

2021

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The assessment of animal welfare on-farm is important to ensure that current welfare standards are followed. The current manual assessment proposed by Welfare Quality® (WQ), although being an essential tool, is only a point-estimate in time, is very time consuming to perform, only evaluates a subset of the animals, and is performed by the subjective human. Automation of the assessment through information technologies (ITs) could provide a continuous objective assessment in real-time on all animals. The aim of the current systematic review was to identify ITs developed for welfare monitoring within the pig production chain, evaluate the ITs developmental stage and evaluate how these ITs can be related to the WQ assessment protocol. The systematic literature search identified 101 publications investigating the development of ITs for welfare monitoring within the pig production chain. The systematic literature analysis revealed that the research field is still young with 97% being published within the last 20 years, and still growing with 63% being published between 2016 and mid-2020. In addition, most focus is still on the development of ITs (sensors) for the extraction and analysis of variables related to pig welfare; this being the first step in the development of a precision livestock farming system for welfare monitoring. The majority of the studies have used sensor technologies detached from the animals such as cameras and microphones, and most investigated animal biomarkers over environmental biomarkers with a clear focus on behavioural biomarkers over physiological biomarkers. ITs intended for many different welfare issues have been studied, although a high number of publications did not specify a welfare issue and instead studied a general biomarker such as activity, feeding behaviour and drinking behaviour. The ‘good feeding’ principle of the WQ assessment protocol was the best represented with ITs for real-time on-farm welfare assessment, while for the other principles only few of the included WQ measures are so far covered. No ITs have yet been developed for the ‘Comfort around resting’ and the ‘Good human-animal relationship’ criteria. Thus, the potential to develop ITs for welfare assessment within the pig production is high and much work is still needed to end up with a remote solution for welfare assessment on-farm and in real-time.

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Section: Systematic Literature Searchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information Technologies for Welfare Monitoring in Pigs and Their Relation to Welfare Quality®

2021

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“…In these systems, birds experience several housing constraints such as high stocking density, poor air quality, and high moisture in the litter, with welfare issues such as leg health disorders (e.g., rickets, dyschondroplasia, lameness, angular bone deformities, hock burns, and foot pad dermatitis) and compromised behavioral repertoire (Dawkins et al, 2004;Bessei, 2006;Angel, 2007;Averós and Estevez, 2018). While free-range housing is used for both fast-and slow-growing broilers, welfare improvements in conventional intensive indoor production systems remains a focus point in broiler welfare research (Bracke et al, 2019;Rios et al, 2020). A range of lighting factors (i.e., source, intensity, photoperiods, and spectrum) have consequences for broiler production, behavior and welfare (Buyse et al, 1996;Olanrewaju et al, 2006;Soliman and El-Sabrout, 2020).…”

Section: Effects Of Uv Light In Meat Chickens (Excluding Breeder Birds)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of Ultraviolet Light for Poultry Production: A Review of Impacts on Behavior, Physiology, and Production

Rana

Campbell

2021

Front. Anim. Sci.

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The application of ultraviolet (UV) light in poultry production is garnering increased interest with the drive toward improved poultry welfare and optimized production. Poultry can see in the UV spectrum (UVA wavelengths: 320–400 nm) thus inclusion of these shorter wavelengths may be viewed as more natural but are typically excluded in conventional artificial lights. Furthermore, UVB wavelengths (280–315) have physiological impact through stimulation of vitamin D pathways that can then improve skeletal health. However, better understanding of the effects of UV supplementation must occur before implementation practically. This non-systematic literature review aimed to summarize the impacts of UV supplementation on the behavior, welfare, and production of laying hens, meat chickens (breeders and growers), and other domestic poultry species including directions for future research. The literature demonstrated that UVA light has positive impacts on reducing fear and stress responses but in some research, it significantly increases feather pecking over age during the production phase. UVB light will significantly improve skeletal health, but an optimum duration of exposure is necessary to get this benefit. Supplementation with UVB light may have more distinct impacts on egg production and eggshell quality when hens are experiencing a dietary vitamin D3 deficiency, or if they are at the terminal end of production. The relative benefits of UVB supplementation across different ages needs to be further verified along with commercial trials to confirm beneficial or detrimental impacts of adding UVA wavelengths. Further research is warranted to determine whether adding natural light wavelengths to indoor poultry production is indeed a positive step toward optimizing commercial housing systems.

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“…With respect to the sensors used in poultry PLF, they found that cameras were used in a large proportion of the studies (42.42%) while the use of microphones was less popular (14.02%). Another review, comprising 57 studies, found that only 8% used sound technology [40]. Therefore, the general trend in PLF is the capture of a lot of data from different kind of sensors that must be processed with big data and internet of things technologies to facilitate the smart management of poultry [41].…”

Section: Acoustic Analysis Of Bird Vocalisations For Welfare Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic Description of the Soundscape of a Real-Life Intensive Farm and Its Impact on Animal Welfare: A Preliminary Analysis of Farm Sounds and Bird Vocalisations

Ginovart-Panisello

Alsina-Pagès

Iriondo

et al. 2020

Sensors

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Poultry meat is the world’s primary source of animal protein due to low cost and is widely eaten at a global level. However, intensive production is required to supply the demand although it generates stress to animals and welfare problems, which have to be reduced or eradicated for the better health of birds. In this study, bird welfare is measured by certain indicators: CO2, temperature, humidity, weight, deaths, food, and water intake. Additionally, we approach an acoustic analysis of bird vocalisations as a possible metric to add to the aforementioned parameters. For this purpose, an acoustic recording and analysis of an entire production cycle of an intensive broiler Ross 308 poultry farm in the Mediterranean area was performed. The acoustic dataset generated was processed to obtain the Equivalent Level (Leq), the mean Peak Frequency (PF), and the PF variation, every 30 min. This acoustical analysis aims to evaluate the relation between traditional indicators (death, weight, and CO2) as well as acoustical metrics (equivalent level impact (Leq) and Peak Frequency) of a complete intensive production cycle. As a result, relation between CO2 and humidity versus Leq was found, as well as decreases in vocalisation when the intake of food and water was large.

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How Are Information Technologies Addressing Broiler Welfare? A Systematic Review Based on the Welfare Quality® Assessment

Cited by 18 publications

References 100 publications

Information Technologies for Welfare Monitoring in Pigs and Their Relation to Welfare Quality®

Information Technologies for Welfare Monitoring in Pigs and Their Relation to Welfare Quality®

Application of Ultraviolet Light for Poultry Production: A Review of Impacts on Behavior, Physiology, and Production

Acoustic Description of the Soundscape of a Real-Life Intensive Farm and Its Impact on Animal Welfare: A Preliminary Analysis of Farm Sounds and Bird Vocalisations

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