Low body weight and poor lighting in the hen house increase the risk of keel bone damage in organic laying hens

The researchers gathered information on housing and care of the hen flocks by visiting farms around Europe. Keel bone damage were examined in 50 randomly selected hens per flock when the flocks were between 52 and 73 weeks old. The presence of keel bone damage varied between 3 percent and 88 percent of the hens in the flocks. From previous experiences and through literature studies, the researchers had produced 26 possible factors for keel bone damage and these factors were examined on the farms. Through this analysis, nine risk factors were identified which proved to be of importance, such as, for example, if the hens were kept in multi-storey buildings, the hen house lacked natural daylight, if the hens had low or high body weight. The nine identified risk factors explained 32 percent of the variation in keel bone damages between the flocks.

Therefore, in order to reduce the incidence of keel bone damage, the interior and lighting need to be improved so that the hens can more easily orient and move in the system. In addition, you need to improve feeding and keep track of the hens following the standard curve for body weight recommended for the respective laying hens hybrid. However, in order to better understand the relationship between the percentage of laying, feeding and keel bone damage, in-depth studies need to be done.