Welfare Standards for Poultry

A compelling reason for me keeping my own chickens is to know exactly how they are kept and knowing what they are eating and ultimately what is going into my eggs. I do not have the guilt of knowing my eggs come from a battery where birds are kept in very poor conditions. The next thing I ask myself is ‘What about the welfare of poultry kept as a hobby?' commercial establishments have their own set of rules for welfare but are we as hobbyists given any best-practice guidelines to follow?

Well up until now no, however the draft avian welfare strategy has just been released. This is (and much of this is quoted with permission from their website that I would encourage you to visit: Avian Welfare Strategy)

The welfare discussion document, Avian Strategy For Hobbyist Livestock and Pet Birds, has been eight months in the making. It was put together by the National Committee for Bird Strategy, a group of eight specialist societies: the British Waterfowl Association, Hawk Board, National Council for Aviculture, National Pigeon Association of Great Britain, Parrot Society UK, Pet Care Trust, Poultry Club of Great Britain and World Pheasant Association.

So now we finally have a committee bringing the specialist societies together to create a document that will (in its final form) become England 's Health and Welfare Strategy for Birds', that is, the basis for the official ‘best-practice guidelines' to be followed by fanciers.

There are four main aims of the National Committee for Bird Strategy:

1. To bring all hobbyist bird keepers together and develop a national strategy program under one umbrella.
2. To maintain participation in bird keeping.
3. To raise bird keeping skills, training and standards.
4. To improve the quality and breeding of birds under hobbyist control.

The document also reviews issues such as medicine needs, bird welfare standards, health surveillance arrangements and companion bird research.

For this Strategy to succeed, everybody involved in keeping birds, including poultry keepers should read the draft document, now available on the birdwelfarestrategy,org.uk website and engage with the issues to achieve their aims.

The committee is seeking comment on the document from bird keepers. Committee member Colin O'Hara said:
"We want bird keepers to tell us if they think we've missed something out or whether we've been too ambitious in what we think can be achieved. We want them to comment in general about the aspirations in the document".

You can visit the National Committee for Bird Strategy's website here: www.birdwelfarestrategy.org.uk/ and download the draft welfare discussion document there.