Dutch egg producers are learning to live without beak trimming

Dutch_farmers are learning to live without beak trimming

Poultry World, Aug 22, 2018

Beak treatments will formally be banned in the Netherlands from next year, but the market has moved ahead of legislation. Poultry World discovers how farms are managing the change.

From the beginning of September, members of the Netherlands’ largest egg assurance scheme, IKB EI, will not be permitted to keep hens with treated beaks.

This also includes infrared beak trimming. To this end, Avined decided to anticipate market demands as much as possible.

The German KAT (Association for Controlled Alternative Animal Husbandry) monitoring system has already prohibited the restocking of hens with trimmed beaks with effect from 1 January 2017.

Read more about the role of market forces, environmental enrichment, feed and light in Poultry World…

Hennovation guidelines on feather pecking and end-of-lay

Recently, two guidelines have been produced in the Hennovation project: One on feather pecking and one on end-of-lay.

Déborah Temple, Thea van Niekerk, Claire Weeks, Xavier Manteca, 2017. Guidelines feather pecking. Hennovation (32 pp).

Déborah Temple, Thea van Niekerk, Claire Weeks, Xavier Manteca, 2017. Guidelines end of lay. Hennovation (24 pp).

Déborah Temple, Thea van Niekerk, Claire Weeks, Xavier Manteca, 2017. Guidelines feather pecking. Hennovation (32 pp).

Déborah Temple, Thea van Niekerk, Claire Weeks, Xavier Manteca, 2017. Guidelines end of lay. Hennovation (24 pp).

Join GFIA to prepare for the future

GFIA Europe (May 8-10, Utrecht, the Netherlands) is the place to be to prepare for the future. It is the world’s largest dedicated expo of sustainable agriculture solutions.
The programme includes:

  • Seminar on the future of poultry farming (May 10th, 10.30-12.00hrs, hosted by Fabian Brockotter, Editor in chief Poultry World)
  • The national Dutch poultry congress (May 10th 12-17hrs, hosted by VIV Worldwide and Rabobank)
  • AgTech Leaders Summit where you can listen to H.E. Martijn van Dam (Minister for Agriculture, The Netherlands), Liam Condon (President of Crop Science Division, Bayer AG), Wiebe Draijer (Chairman of the Executive Board Rabobank), Prof. Louise O Fresco (President of the Executive Board Wageningen UR), Marc Calon (President LTO Nederland) and Adam Anders (Adam Anders Managing Partner Anterra Capital).

You can register here.

Hennovelties newsletter

Hennovelties is the bi-annual newsletter of the Hennovation project. The Henhub website is part of this project. The Hennovelties newsletter will keep you up to date about project progress and results, upcoming events and links to other research and projects. Please contact Paula Baker at p.e.baker(at)bristol.ac.uk to subscribe to the newletter. You can view previous Hennovelties newletters here.