Human factors influencing broiler welfare.

Abstract

AbstractThe sequential relationships between human and animal variables found in the livestock industries indicate that there is an excellent opportunity to target stockperson attitudes and behaviour in order to reduce limitations imposed by human-animal interactions on poultry welfare. Understanding stockperson behaviour appears to be the key to manipulating these human-animal interactions to improve poultry welfare. Empirical data from the agricultural industries, particularly the poultry industries, on the relationships between other job-related characteristics of stockpeople and animal welfare are sparse. Research on these topics is clearly required if the broiler industry is to minimize the limitations that human-animal interactions impose on poultry welfare. With such knowledge, stockperson selection, screening and training programmes addressing these job-related characteristics are likely to offer the poultry industries substantial potential to improve poultry welfare. While welfare audits incorporated into industry quality assurance programmes are likely to improve animal welfare, the potential impact of such programmes will only be realized by recognizing the limitations of stockpeople and providing systematic and ongoing training to target the key job-related characteristics of the stockperson.