Beak treatment: Following the current market situation

Contenido disponible en: Español (Spanish)

After several years of conducting different tests for the most suitable beak treatments that could be performed on birds and adapting them to current market trends (namely animal welfare) the results have led us to adapt to two types of treatments.

SHORTER BEAKS

Farmers that look for shorter beaks have in mind the objective of minimizing the possibilities of feather pecking as well as instances of cannibalism. In this case, the birds will have blunter beaks (the shorter the length, the blunter the beak) and therefore cause less damages.

BEAKS WITH MINIMAL TREATMENT

The other situation is where farmers seek beaks that have undergone very minor treatments, which lead to longer beaks compared to other treating methods. This particular order is requested by farmers who have full control over any type of stimuli that can trigger pecking and cannibalism, and wish to maintain the full integrity of the birds under the guidelines of animal welfare. Such flocks also serve as a training model for a situation that will come to all of us sooner than later, which is the eventual banning of all types of beak treatment.

All the changes are supported by a series of controls and evaluations of the treated flocks. This has allowed us to narrow down the range of treatments to work with. In addition, the monitoring that we continue to do routinely on certain flocks allows us to verify that the results are correct, with the minimum possible deviations from the objectives set.

CURRENTLY TWO TYPES OF TREATMENT ARE THE FOLLOWING:

1. 27/23 glass mirror masks with an intensity of 46.
2. 25/23 aluminum masks with intensities of 41/42.