Husbandry Practices - transportation, handling, capture, euthanasia

Development of a Humane and Efficient Spent Hen Disposal Unit (November 2002)

Project Lead: Dr. John Church, Animal Welfare Specialist, AAF. This project evaluates two high-throughput methods for on-farm euthanasia of spent hens:

• Electrocution
• CO² Asphyxiation

Data gathered will enable the design of a machine to humanely and efficiently euthanize spent hens, improving the kill rate compared to current methods, while ensuring high through-put and efficiency.

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To determine the effect of preconditioning and transport distance on live weight shrink, animal health and performance, behaviour and stress responses. These findings will help to promote management techniques prior to transport that are beneficial to Alberta cattle and producers. The finding may also serve as a basis for recommendations on the pre-shipping management of light weight calves.The study will include an auction market simulation, feeding behaviour monitoring and several invasive and noninvasive physiological measurements.