Communicating genetic vendors about welfare issues

The BroilerNet project involves a bottom-up approach to identify challenges and innovation needs for broiler farmers in Europe and to collect promising and already successfully implemented Good Practices to meet the challenges in question. The top Good Practices selected by experts within the three thematic areas (animal health management, animal welfare, and sustainability) have been summarized in factsheets. Timely communication of welfare issues to the genetic material vendors is an important practice to improve genetics. Many welfare issues are systematically recorded and evaluated. Those that may be related to the genetic material and occur at a higher than normal level of prevalence will be communicated to the vendors of the genetic material. The veterinarians and animal scientists monitor and evaluate welfare issues during their farm visits. Animal welfare issues (e.g., leg problems) that occur and are attributed directly to genetic material are systematically evaluated and immediately communicated to the relevant vendors. For example, ruptured tendons were a problem that has been communicated and significantly improved.