Updates on laying hen and pullet standards consultation

Updates to our poultry standards

Following a public consultation during summer 2021, our poultry standards have been updated to:

• introduce a new higher standard to require enrichment in the house for flocks of 500 birds or more
• bring our upper flock size limit for laying hens and pullets into line with the EU and UK Organic Regulations, increasing from 2000 to 3000 birds
• clarify our standard on range design

Almost 100 people took part in the public consultation and their views have informed these standards updates. You can see a summary of the changes we have made to our standards here.

Why have these changes been made?

Soil Association standards are based on scientific evidence and industry best practice. We review them in light of new evidence and information to keep them on the leading edge. We want to ensure that our standards support organic producers to deliver the best animal welfare outcomes and have a positive impact on our broad strategy goals, to protect our climate and nature and improve health.

We proposed changes to our poultry standards based on an independent review of the latest academic reports and on-farm trials.

Background

The Soil Association’s poultry standards are higher than the EU and UK Organic Regulation in a number of areas. The aim is to achieve:

• the highest levels of bird welfare
• a small environmental footprint
• viable and practical production for farmers

The points of difference between Soil Association and other organic standards include:

• more solid floor space per bird in the house, covered with loose litter, to enable the birds to carry out natural behaviours like dustbathing and scratching
• more elevated aerial perching space to allow natural hierarchical behaviours
• more than double the amount of space per bird to roam outside
• natural shelter, e.g. trees, throughout the outdoor range to help the birds feel safe to explore and forage over the full area. Improved range use has been shown to decrease the risk of negative behaviours such as injurious feather pecking
• access to the outdoors from a younger age which gives the birds more confidence to use the range

We also check the standards are having the intended effect in delivering good welfare outcomes. Some of the factors that offer the highest welfare potential, such as freedom to roam and freedom from mutilation (i.e. no beak trimming) need attentive management from experienced staff for the system to work well. We provide training materials for our poultry producer licensees to allow them to assess their birds to a set of welfare outcomes and adjust their management accordingly. During farm visits, our inspectors not only check compliance with resource-based standards, but also carry out an independent welfare outcomes assessment and benchmarking of the flock.

To keep our standards innovative, we keep our higher standards under review. This ensures that there is good evidence that retaining them will have a benefit that otherwise would not be delivered.

Enrichment

One of the most important welfare outcome measures is feather loss due to feather pecking. All types of injurious pecking appear to be a form of normal pecking redirected inappropriately to another bird.  If other pecking substrates such as litter are less attractive than the feathers of a neighbour, then pecks may be directed at feathers instead.[1]

Producers have found that a variety of inexpensive objects in the house can promote positive indoor foraging behaviour, which can reduce feather pecking in their flock. These enrichments can include hanging objects or pecking materials, alongside destructible items like netted bales that the birds can manipulate and eventually destroy. Changing these regularly to maintain novelty and making them available in the different areas of the house is necessary to promote interest and accessibility to all birds.

In recent on-farm trials, the provision of novel enrichment with a variety of pecking substrates in the houses appeared to have a positive effect on feather loss, as did the whole-life approach to welfare which matches conditions in the rearing phase with those in the laying phase.

On the basis of consultation feedback and information from welfare outcomes assessments, enrichment materials are required for flocks of more than 500 birds, and recommended for smaller flocks.

Flock size

A review of the latest evidence suggests that the good welfare we see in Soil Association laying hens is due to a package of higher standards and best practice but this does not include our flock size limit. We are confident about this because we now have a much larger pool of data than we did at our last in-depth review of our flock size standard, plus more than ten years of experience in carrying out welfare outcomes assessments.  Results of a recent two-year multi-site trial have shown that when environmental enrichment is provided and the rest of the Soil Association standards are met, 3000 bird flocks can perform as well as 2000 bird flocks on the key welfare outcome measures.[2] This proposal was well supported in the standards consultation. We submit our higher standards to a number of tests to make sure that when we are asking our producers to go the extra mile, it is delivering a clear benefit. In this case, we believe that our higher standard on flock size is no longer necessary to deliver the benefit of good hen welfare.

Range design

While house design and enrichment provide welfare improvement opportunities indoors, opportunities should also be available outdoors through the range design and management. The lack of feather loss in the recent trials is also likely to be linked to the foraging opportunities provided by the well-managed outdoor range.   

There is good evidence that improved range use can decrease the risk of negative behaviours such as injurious feather pecking.[3] Outdoor foraging also increases the amount of fibre in the diet of the birds which has been linked to better welfare outcomes.[4]

Following feedback in the standards consultation, we have further clarified our standard on range design, to make it clear that we support producers who provide larger ranges, but the minimum outdoor space required for the flock must be available within a reasonable distance from the house.

Long narrow strips or pan-handle shapes that require the birds to walk a long way do not encourage good range use and can cause poor ground conditions due to high traffic in certain areas.

• [1] Injurious pecking : Advice from FeatherWel
• [2] NB. For context, the organic limit of 3000 birds in a flock is less than one fifth of the size of RSPCA certified free range flocks, which limit flocks to 16,000 birds.
• [3] https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/529829/Farmed-Bird-Welfare-Science-Review.pdf
• [4] https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/livestock-and-animals/animal-welfare-victoria/livestock-management-and-welfare/farmed-bird-welfare-science-review