Although aviaries offer a variety of advantages for bird welfare, the catching and carrying of hens for removal from the laying barn results in a high number of injuries that compromise animal welfare. The trend of increasing aviary height is likely adding to the difficulties as handlers must climb to upper levels to retrieve birds and pass them to persons below before finally loading them into transport crates. The proposed work seeks to investigate the various phases of the process during actual on-farm removals in order to identify the nature and frequency of injuries as well as where and how in the removal process they occur. Assessments of measures relevant to animal welfare (e.g., muscle damage, heart rate, respiration) will be recorded on a subset of birds. Using knowledge gained in the first phase of the study and consultation with producers and industry experts, a second experimental part will be conducted to evaluate changes to parts of the removal process identified as hazardous, e.g., capture of hens at elevated positions, ergonomics.
