Fear and stress in chickens

All animals show fear and stress and as their keepers, it should alert us to their needs. This month Paul Donovan investigates its role in poultry and how to reduce it.

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One of the best definitions of fear, is that made by the well respected poultry scientist R. Jones. He defines it as “fear is regarded as an adaptive state, with fear behaviour functioning to protect the animal from injury.” Essentially, what he is saying, is that fear is a protective mechanism to an external stimulus such as danger, or harm; whether that be real or perceived.

Fear, is a mechanism which helps keep an alive, and can be innate (born with) or acquired (learnt). Jones goes on further to say “Fear is often adaptive in ideal circumstances, but neither we nor the animals in our care live in a perfect world. In reality, many farming systems prevent the animals from responding in an adaptive fashion to potentially threatening stimuli. In these circumstances, fear can be a powerful and potentially damaging stressor, particularly if it is intense or persistent. Minor fear within tolerable limits will do the bird no harm. But both acute and chronic fear can seriously harm welfare and performance of poultry”.

Factors which interfere with the well-being of the bird are called stressors, or stress factors, and the result of the response, or its effort, to that bird while trying to cope with the stressor, is what constitutes stress. A stressor can be any number of things, ranging from tension, anxiety, worry, fear, uncertainty, problems, threats, discomfort, pressure, strain, challenge, difficulty, distress, hardship, burden, effort or struggle.