Free range systems provide significant animal welfare
improvements when compared to battery cages (greater ability to
express a range of natural behaviours is an obvious example).
However, they still incur serious welfare problems, as this new
study demonstrates. Anon. Free-range or battery: what
difference? Vet Practice [UK] 2010; 42(7): 40, Laying hens are
just as likely to suffer serious welfare problems when housed
under free-range conditions as they are in intensive battery
production systems, researchers at Bristol veterinary school
have discovered. Anna Davies, a postgraduate student in the
animal welfare and behaviour group, described a study looking at
spent hens in the run-up to depopulation at around 72 weeks of
age. She pointed out that many of the welfare issues of most
concern to consumers, animal welfarists and the industry are
cumulative and so they are best measured at the end of the
birds?’ working lives. It must be remembered, however, that the
findings may underestimate the severity of wel