Presentation by Rebecca Doyle at a One Health Poultry Hub Roadmap Series, 3 February 2021.

1. Poultry production
vaccination challenges:
What does it mean for
animal welfare?
• Poultry welfare is obviously increased with the
prevention of disease
• Malaise, pain, dehydration and emaciation, decreased
productivity, immunosuppression, reduced liveability
(Butterworth & Weeks, 2010)
• Management conditions, social status and behaviour
contribute to individual disease susceptibility
• Disease outbreak control: culling humanely at scale
creates significant risks to welfare & livelihoods
(photo credits: ILRI)
The Animal Welfare
Science Centre

2. What does it mean for human welfare?
photo credits: https://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/how-to-depopulate-end-of-lay-hens-responsibly

3. Vaccination & welfare barriers
Vaccines, when implemented, can fail for a
whole host of reasons
• Small animals with short lifespans, so often
overlooked individually
• Animal health services are poorly supported
• Farmers are presumed to not care, or not
know enough. This misses the complexities
and deficits of the systems in which they
operate, the risks they take on, and impact
poor outcomes on their risk-taking threshold
• Programs that involve animals need to
consider the animal across its whole lifetime
Sasso day old chicks were hatched and brought to the brooder houses contracted by
the ACGG Tanzania team. (photo credits: ILRI)

4. Welfare & production
opportunities
• Vaccines as part of a broader control strategy:
including improved biosecurity, hygiene,
management and animal welfare [Guide to chicken
health and management in Ethiopia & Controlling
Newcastle disease in village chickens: a training manual]
• Role of breeds: local breeds are more resilient
• Good stock management for early identification
and intervention when disease – or any other
welfare challenges – are detected
A smallholder farmer providing locally available feeds to improved Kuroiler
and Sasso birds (Photo credit: TALIRI)

5. “In the pragmatic world of
farming, flock health status
may be frequently chosen as
the index of welfare, but it is
important not to lose sight
of the health and well-being
of each individual, even in
flocks numbering tens of
thousands of birds” -
Butterworth & Weeks, 2010
Rebecca Doyle
International Livestock
Research Institute
& University of Melbourne
rebecca.doyle@unimelb.edu.au
A woman sells live ducklings in a 'wet market' in Indonesia (photo credit: ILRI/Chris Jost).

6. THANK YOU