Product

Brochure preventing feather pecking

Wageningen Livestock Research works together with poultry farmers on measures to prevent feather pecking. Useful information for the industry is summarised in a brochure.

Feather pecking causes pain, injury and even death in poultry. Preventing pecking behaviour is not easy. Many different factors affect it, such as disposition, litter, lighting conditions, group size, perches, stocking density, climate, free range and feed composition. These factors can also influence each other. It is difficult to pinpoint a single cause.

Brochure for poultry farmers

Preventing feather pecking is better than curing it. Once chicks start pecking during rearing, it is almost impossible to stop the behaviour. Effective prevention lies in the right mix of nutrition, care and housing measures and breeding chickens that peck less. In the brochure below, we have summarised our knowledge on effective measures.

Download the brochure 'Emergency measures against feather pecking'