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Centennial Review: A revisiting of hen welfare and egg safety consequences of mandatory outdoor access for organic egg production

Mandating free range husbandry as a requirement for organic egg designation remains a prevailing sentiment within a segment of the organic community. The proponents maintain that such management practice ensures high hen welfare and enhanced wholesomeness of the egg. However, evidence from the field...

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Autor principal: Holt, Peter S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8592875/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34768045
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psj.2021.101436
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author Holt, Peter S.
author_facet Holt, Peter S.
author_sort Holt, Peter S.
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description Mandating free range husbandry as a requirement for organic egg designation remains a prevailing sentiment within a segment of the organic community. The proponents maintain that such management practice ensures high hen welfare and enhanced wholesomeness of the egg. However, evidence from the field, especially in the European Union (EU), contradicts these assumptions. In many cases, hens allowed outdoor access were more subject to increased injury from predators and from flock mates, disease was more prevalent and generally more severe, and, as a result, higher mortality was routinely observed in these individuals compared with those raised indoors. The safety of eggs from free range hens is also questionable. Outdoor access compromises biosecurity efforts to curtail interaction of hens with rodents and wild birds, increasing the risk of flock Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis infection and consequent production of Salmonella-contaminated eggs. Even more serious, soil contaminated with dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls, carcinogenic industrial by-products widespread in the environment, can be ingested by hens foraging outdoors. These compounds will subsequently be deposited into the egg yolks, many times at high levels, creating a serious food safety issue for the consuming public. Such findings provide evidence that hens exposed to a free-range environment may exhibit neither an enhanced welfare nor produce the safe wholesome egg that consumers expect.
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spelling pubmed-85928752021-11-22 Centennial Review: A revisiting of hen welfare and egg safety consequences of mandatory outdoor access for organic egg production Holt, Peter S. Poult Sci ANIMAL WELL-BEING AND BEHAVIOR Mandating free range husbandry as a requirement for organic egg designation remains a prevailing sentiment within a segment of the organic community. The proponents maintain that such management practice ensures high hen welfare and enhanced wholesomeness of the egg. However, evidence from the field, especially in the European Union (EU), contradicts these assumptions. In many cases, hens allowed outdoor access were more subject to increased injury from predators and from flock mates, disease was more prevalent and generally more severe, and, as a result, higher mortality was routinely observed in these individuals compared with those raised indoors. The safety of eggs from free range hens is also questionable. Outdoor access compromises biosecurity efforts to curtail interaction of hens with rodents and wild birds, increasing the risk of flock Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis infection and consequent production of Salmonella-contaminated eggs. Even more serious, soil contaminated with dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls, carcinogenic industrial by-products widespread in the environment, can be ingested by hens foraging outdoors. These compounds will subsequently be deposited into the egg yolks, many times at high levels, creating a serious food safety issue for the consuming public. Such findings provide evidence that hens exposed to a free-range environment may exhibit neither an enhanced welfare nor produce the safe wholesome egg that consumers expect. Elsevier 2021-08-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8592875/ /pubmed/34768045 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psj.2021.101436 Text en © 2021 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of Poultry Science Association Inc. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle ANIMAL WELL-BEING AND BEHAVIOR
Holt, Peter S.
Centennial Review: A revisiting of hen welfare and egg safety consequences of mandatory outdoor access for organic egg production
title Centennial Review: A revisiting of hen welfare and egg safety consequences of mandatory outdoor access for organic egg production
title_full Centennial Review: A revisiting of hen welfare and egg safety consequences of mandatory outdoor access for organic egg production
title_fullStr Centennial Review: A revisiting of hen welfare and egg safety consequences of mandatory outdoor access for organic egg production
title_full_unstemmed Centennial Review: A revisiting of hen welfare and egg safety consequences of mandatory outdoor access for organic egg production
title_short Centennial Review: A revisiting of hen welfare and egg safety consequences of mandatory outdoor access for organic egg production
title_sort centennial review: a revisiting of hen welfare and egg safety consequences of mandatory outdoor access for organic egg production
topic ANIMAL WELL-BEING AND BEHAVIOR
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8592875/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34768045
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psj.2021.101436
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