Prevention of feather pecking

摘要

Rod Woolford shows how standard management practices can prevent devastating loss of production. Feather pecking and cannibalism are not new problems in poultry flocks. Unfortunately, they can occur at any time, and the damage inflicted varies considerably depending on the severity of attack. Causes of destructive pecking can be difficult to determine, and this, together with the unpredictability of occurrence, often makes controlling this particular vice a frustrating task. Because poultry can attack one another in a number of ways, identifying the type of pecking is helpful when seeking the cause of the attack and dealing with its consequences.