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Australian Eggs condemns acts of animal cruelty
AUSTRALIAN Eggs has been made aware of disturbing video footage of hens being abused at an egg farm in Victoria.
The footage appears to show serious acts of animal cruelty includ- ing contractors attempt- ing to kill hens through brutal and disgraceful methods that in no way reflects standard indus- try practice.
Euthanising hens is a necessary part of egg farming and it is critical it is done in the most humane way.
Industry guidelines on euthanising hens em- phasise the importance
of using the best meth- ods to minimise suffer- ing and correct handling to minimise stress to birds.
Australian Eggs pro- vides training on hu- manely euthanising hens through accred- ited training facilita- tors and this service is made available to egg farms across the country.
This incident demon-
strates the importance of mandatory animal welfare standards, which are supported by industry as part of the Standards and Guide- lines process.
There is no connec- tion between industry standards and the ani- mal cruelty that appears to have been captured in the video footage.
Where the abuse of animals may have oc- curred, Australian Eggs encourages regulatory authorities to investigate to determine if there have been breaches of animal cruelty laws.
www.australianeggs. org.au
A solarium for hens? How to increase the vitamin D content of chicken eggs
MANY people suffer from vitamin D defi- ciency.
This can result in brittle bones and an increased risk of respiratory dis- eases.
Chicken eggs are a natu- ral source of vitamin D and one way to, at least partially, compensate for this deficiency.
A team of nutritionists and agricultural scientists at Martin Luther Univer- sity Halle-Wittenberg, Germany has found a new way to further increase the vitamin D content of eggs: by exposing chick- ens to UV light.
As the team writes in the scientific journal ‘Poultry Science’, the method can be put into practice in henhouses straight away.
Vitamin D assumes many important functions in the human body.
During summer, people are able to cover about 90 percent of their daily vitamin D requirements themselves since it forms naturally in the skin through exposure to sun- light, which contains spe-
cial bands of light in the UV spectrum.
The remainder is ide- ally consumed through food, such as oily fish and chicken eggs.
MLU nutritionist Dr Ju- lia Kühn said, “However, lifestyle choices prevent many people from getting enough vitamin D.”
“The problem increases even more in winter when there is less sunshine.”
The researchers were therefore looking for a way to increase the amount of vitamin D in food, in this case in eggs.
“The idea was to stimu- late the natural vitamin D production of chickens,” Kühn said.
“Using UV lamps in hen- houses would increase the vitamin D content of eggs.”
In earlier studies, the researchers were able to prove the fundamental success of their approach when they illuminated the legs of the chickens with UV light.
“However, the experi- ments were always con- ducted under ideal condi- tions,” Kühn said.
“There was only one chicken per lamp.
“In chicken farms, there is a much higher stock- ing density than here – in other words: a lot more animals.”
The new study aimed to test the practical feasi- bility of the method and therefore was conducted on two chicken farms.
Comparisons were made between two different chicken breeds, assorted lamps and different du- rations of light exposure per day.
The researchers not only continuously analysed the vitamin D content of the newly laid eggs during the trial period, they also in- vestigated the impact the additional light had on the animals.
MLU animal husband- ry expert Prof Eberhard von Borell said, “Humans cannot see UV light, but chickens can.”
“Therefore, light re- gimes are a critical as- pect in chicken husbandry because light influences behaviour and laying ac- tivity.”
His working group ana- lysed the behaviour of the animals using video re- cordings.
The researchers also inspected the chickens’ plumage for injuries by other members in order to assess their potential for activity and aggression.
The research team’s idea worked.
After only three weeks of UV light exposure for six hours per day, the vi- tamin D content of the eggs increased three to four-fold.
This value did not in- crease any further in fol- lowing weeks.
Also, the additional UV light did not cause any obvious problems for the hens.
They neither avoided the area around the lamps, nor did they act any dif- ferently.
As a result, the research- ers conclude that their method also works under practical conditions and this could represent an important step towards supplying the population with vitamin D.
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National Poultry Newspaper, July 2019 – Page 3
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