Periodic Reporting for period 4 - PPILOW (Poultry and PIg Low-input and Organic production systems’ Welfare)
Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2024-08-31
PPILOW was a multiactor project aiming to co-create with end-users innovations improving the welfare of pigs and poultry in low-input outdoor and organic farming systems. The participatory approach involved National Practitioner Groups (NPG) co-building innovative breeding and rearing strategies and techniques on this purpose. Firstly, the project gathered a comprehensive inventory of the ethical, socio-economic and technical factors that are essential to improve poultry and pig welfare in organic and low-input outdoor production systems, providing a shortlist of potential levers of improvement. The NPGs also co-built and tested with PPILOW partners mobile apps for assessing and benchmarking animal welfare status on-farm, and tools for evaluating the sustainability of the tested levers based on the One Welfare concept. The first studied strategy focused on enrichments allowing keeping laying hens and fattening pigs in organic and low-input systems without beak trimming and castration, currently applied to prevent feather pecking in laying hens and boar taint in pig meat, respectively. The second explored two strategies to avoid killing day-old layer male chicks: raising dual-purpose breeds for both egg and meat productions and developing an in ovo sexing method. The PPILOW project also aimed to propose innovative solutions for favouring positive behaviours, health and robustness through an increased adaptation to organic and outdoor systems for laying hens, slow-growing broilers and pigs. Promising strategies were evaluated through multicriteria analyses according to the One Welfare concept, and business models developed with stakeholders. Finally, PPILOW disseminated results widely and facilitated the changes of practices by interacting with the different production chain actors and policy makers at national and European levels.
PPILOW partners organized the participatory approach by setting-up nine NPG dedicated to pig or poultry in six countries. The NPG identified barriers to welfare and levers for improvement, and co-created with partners shared tools and strategies tested experimentally and in low-input outdoor and organic farms. The inventory of barriers to welfare and levers for improvement was built-up from focus groups of practitioners, citizens and EU policy makers, and from surveys for practitioners and consumers and a first economic study evaluated their potential economic impacts.
Standardized mobile apps for farmers to self-assess and benchmark on-farm the welfare status of the animals were co-developed (PIGLOW® for pigs) or refined (EBENE® for poultry) with NPG, and made EU-freely available in 9 and 7 European languages, respectively. They were uploaded by hundreds of outdoor and organic farmers and advisers and allowed progressing in some animal behaviour and welfare scores. Meanwhile, a data collection framework based on the One Welfare approach centered on both human and animal welfare has been co-created with NPG. The provision of covered and enriched verandas in laying hens allowed to limit feather pecking in laying hens with intact beaks while lower slaughter age in different genetics and additional straw bedding and dietary fibers in organic pigs allowed limiting boar taint in the meat from non-castrated male pigs. For finding alternatives to the elimination of layer male chicks, three experimental trials compared dual-purpose genotypes (DK, DE, FR). Results on both males and females showed a high variability of technical performance between genotypes and countries, with moderate to good egg quality for the different breeds. On-farm trials in the three countries enable the multicriteria evaluation of the use of genotypes, showing the resilience of the breeds if attention is paid on the first steps of their rearing. The economic viability of their use requires organizational adjustments between practitioners, feeding strategies to decrease feed costs, marketing strategies on the products, public support and higher price of eggs and/or meat. Concerning in ovo sexing, refinements on methodologies for electrophysical sensing have allowed determining embryo sex for 83% of 8 day-incubated eggs, and hundreds of egg sex biomarkers were identified in from 3 days of incubation. Finally, studies with different broiler genotypes (FR, IT) have allowed a better understanding of the determinants of ranging behavior, and its consequences on chicken performance and adaptability. Early management levers studying temperature variations during incubation (NL, BE, FR) induced behavioural changes during a heat challenge in slow-growing chickens, while on-farm hatching allowed improving chick health at start, provided thermal fine-tuning and organizational adjustments are made in the field (FR, DE). Partners working with layers (DK) and pigs (RO) developed strategies to limit intestinal parasitic and bacterial infections through different feed supplements, based both on in vitro and in vivo studies. Interesting effects of plants to limit parasite infections were obtained in pig farms (RO). Joint protocols were developed and implemented in FR and DK to improve the sow welfare and piglet survival through selective breeding (FR) and innovation within farrowing house design for outdoor rearing of sows and piglets (DK). These innovative devices tested in FR, BE and IT by NPG members allowed improving piglet survival on farm. PPILOW developed online tools, released magazine articles and interviews for communicating on its activities and results, and co-organized joint conferences with other EU projects, international workshops and national technical days. PPILOW released 24 EIP-AGRI and 4 practice Organic Farm Knowledge abstracts and 2 tools accessible on its website (www.ppilow.eu).
Standardized mobile apps for farmers to self-assess and benchmark on-farm the welfare status of the animals were co-developed (PIGLOW® for pigs) or refined (EBENE® for poultry) with NPG, and made EU-freely available in 9 and 7 European languages, respectively. They were uploaded by hundreds of outdoor and organic farmers and advisers and allowed progressing in some animal behaviour and welfare scores. Meanwhile, a data collection framework based on the One Welfare approach centered on both human and animal welfare has been co-created with NPG. The provision of covered and enriched verandas in laying hens allowed to limit feather pecking in laying hens with intact beaks while lower slaughter age in different genetics and additional straw bedding and dietary fibers in organic pigs allowed limiting boar taint in the meat from non-castrated male pigs. For finding alternatives to the elimination of layer male chicks, three experimental trials compared dual-purpose genotypes (DK, DE, FR). Results on both males and females showed a high variability of technical performance between genotypes and countries, with moderate to good egg quality for the different breeds. On-farm trials in the three countries enable the multicriteria evaluation of the use of genotypes, showing the resilience of the breeds if attention is paid on the first steps of their rearing. The economic viability of their use requires organizational adjustments between practitioners, feeding strategies to decrease feed costs, marketing strategies on the products, public support and higher price of eggs and/or meat. Concerning in ovo sexing, refinements on methodologies for electrophysical sensing have allowed determining embryo sex for 83% of 8 day-incubated eggs, and hundreds of egg sex biomarkers were identified in from 3 days of incubation. Finally, studies with different broiler genotypes (FR, IT) have allowed a better understanding of the determinants of ranging behavior, and its consequences on chicken performance and adaptability. Early management levers studying temperature variations during incubation (NL, BE, FR) induced behavioural changes during a heat challenge in slow-growing chickens, while on-farm hatching allowed improving chick health at start, provided thermal fine-tuning and organizational adjustments are made in the field (FR, DE). Partners working with layers (DK) and pigs (RO) developed strategies to limit intestinal parasitic and bacterial infections through different feed supplements, based both on in vitro and in vivo studies. Interesting effects of plants to limit parasite infections were obtained in pig farms (RO). Joint protocols were developed and implemented in FR and DK to improve the sow welfare and piglet survival through selective breeding (FR) and innovation within farrowing house design for outdoor rearing of sows and piglets (DK). These innovative devices tested in FR, BE and IT by NPG members allowed improving piglet survival on farm. PPILOW developed online tools, released magazine articles and interviews for communicating on its activities and results, and co-organized joint conferences with other EU projects, international workshops and national technical days. PPILOW released 24 EIP-AGRI and 4 practice Organic Farm Knowledge abstracts and 2 tools accessible on its website (www.ppilow.eu).
The PPILOW project has generated novel information on how to improve animal welfare in organic and low-input pig and poultry farms. Key informant interviews pointed out differences between countries in the challenges these farms face, but results indicated shared challenges and solutions such as those related to feeding, weather, injuries, lack of expression of natural behaviours, biosecurity, and range management. Industry members and consumers indicated a high level of support for animal welfare, but there was often a lack of consensus as to what constitutes best practice regarding the variety of activities in the different production systems. The NPG members contributed to co-build PIGLOW® and to extent EBENE®, truly optimized apps for evaluating animal welfare by the farmers themselves, now available for European practitioners. NPG have also co-created a global framework based on the One Welfare approach for the assessment of welfare-improving strategies, including both animal and human welfare when evaluating these strategies. The results of the laying hen trial for avoiding feather pecking, the use of dual-purpose breeds, medicinal plants for pigs, on-farm hatching and innovative farrowing huts have already aroused the interest of NPG members who have participated to PPILOW field studies, for solving concretely challenges in poultry and pig low-input and organic systems. The PPILOW partners provided feedbacks on the impacts of the proposed levers for welfare improvement with trainings and active dissemination of the project results towards practitioners, policy makers, consumers and citizens in tight connection with the project National Practitioner Groups.