Enhancement of laying hen welfare regulation in Serbia: a lesson to be learned from the EU experience to reduce the prevalence of keel bone damage

Abstract

To improve laying hen welfare the EU banned conventional cages more than a decade ago. However, it turned out that permitted hen housing systems are not rid of animal welfare problems. One of them is an alarmingly high prevalence of keel bone damage (KBD) in alternative housing systems. For non-EU countries, like Serbia, where keeping laying hens in conventional cages has not yet been officially abandoned, it is very important to learn the lesson from the EU experience. However, the question is who could/should initiate the legislation change, since it is hypothesized in this paper that current knowledge about KBD in Serbia is limited. The main aim of this paper is to find out stakeholders' knowledge and perceptions about KBD in order to identify initiator(s) for the enhancement of the regulation on laying hen welfare in Serbia. For this purpose, a survey has been conducted. A total of 547 respondents representing main stakeholders (57 poultry farmers, 159 poultry experts/professionals, and 331 citizens/consumers) were interviewed. The obtained results confirmed the initial hypothesis that, in general, knowledge about the topic of KBD is very low. Particularly low is the knowledge of citizens. It is therefore not to be expected that this change in welfare standards will be initiated by the general public. Despite farmers' somewhat better knowledge of KBD, it is unrealistic to expect them to initiate changes that are likely to impose costs on their business. Hence, the only driving force behind legislative changes could/should be experts/professionals. Their knowledge is also limited but is better than the knowledge of other stakeholders. The agricultural advisory service, as well as veterinarians, should play a strong role in this process and should act as soon as possible by giving recommendations to decision-makers for the laying hens' welfare regulation enhancement.