Why is environmental enrichment important for meat chicken welfare?

Housing animals in barren environments, particularly during rearing, impacts their welfare. Meat chickens raised in barren environments are less active, which exacerbates poor leg health, and may experience negative mental states due to the lack of variation and behavioural opportunities available. Providing effective enrichment can help to improve health, behavioural expression and positive mental states.

There are many different ways that environmental enrichment can be incorporated into meat chicken housing systems. Effective enrichments that encourage pecking and foraging are attractive to the birds, however other types of enrichments that increase environmental complexity or employ other sensory formats, such as music, have proven beneficial.

Environmental enrichment can include:  

• Organic and non-organic materials such as pecking blocks, objects and balls
• Scattered pellets and whole grains
• Food such as broccoli or cabbage suspended for pecking
• Suspended blocks or reflective balls
• Straw bales, that can be used as foraging material and resting places and reduce lameness and leg disorders 

It’s important that the use of enrichment items is monitored to ensure that birds have not lost interest in the items, and that there are enough options available to cater for the number of birds housed in each system. Enrichment items should be varied and changed regularly to help maintain the interest of birds.  

Further research is needed to determine the most effective types, quantities, and how often enrichment needs to be changed for meat chickens.