Produktionsbur som främjar hönors naturliga beteende

Sammanfattning: Today’s housing system for laying hens has limitations for the hens natural behavior. Despite the current law of prevention of cruelty to animals, this might implicate health problems for the hens. This degree project is aiming to improve the situation for laying hens in cage-systems. The aim with our project is to bring forward a draft of a cage that improves the welfare of laying hens. The studies includes the hen in a natural life and in production, the law of prevention of cruelty to animals and studies of materials and design of current cages, this will hopefully bring out improved alternatives. There are about 5,3 million laying hens in Sweden at this moment but only about seven percent of them have access to open-air and the opportunity to implement their natural behavior. About one million laying hens are kept in approved cage-systems by the New Technique Evaluation Program, according to Swedish Board of Agriculture. These approved systems must include perches, nest boxes, claw shorteners and litter area. For each hen the area must be at least 0,06 square meter. These requirements are not enough with regard to the possibility for the hens to express their natural behaviors. A dammed up behavior can result in stereotypes. All disturbances in behavior are closely related to stress and arise from situations where the handling of the animals is not optimal. The most efficient way of handling emerged stereotypes is to solve the underlying problems i.e. as far as possible adjust the animals environment to improve the possibility to express themselves in a natural way. Regarding to the cage, considerations have been taken concerning natural behaviors that will benefit the welfare of the hen. The system is more commodious, more well-planned concerning perches in position and height, larger area of the cage, the nests and litterboxes, and sand as littersubstrate etcetera.