Risk factors for feather pecking in organic laying hens –starting points for prevention in the housing environment

Summary

Feather pecking still presents a major problem in organic laying hen farming. In order to identify important risk factors during the laying period as well as during the rearing period in an exploratory epidemiological approach, we followed birds from 23 organic rearing units in Austria and Germany to 46 laying units. Management and housing conditions were recorded during one day visits in the 16th to 18th and 30th to 40th week of age, respectively. As an indicator of feather pecking, feather conditions of random samples of 30 hens per laying farm were assessed. Average feather scores from 0 (best) to 3 (worst) were calculated. The average score of 0.73 (± 0.44) was not significantly different from the score of 0.77 (± 0.33) from 54 conventional farms assessed in the same way (p=0.247). 73 % of the total variance in feather score between the different organic farms could be explained by 6 variables. About 79 % of the explained variation was due to rearing conditions. The major risk factors for poor plumage were little elevated perch space, few drinking places and no regular scattering of grain during the rearing period, as well as poor litter quality during the laying period. It is concluded that these are feasible starting points for improved prevention strategies against feather pecking.