New ray of hope in pecking battle

Picture: 13 week old pullet having undergone latest infra-red beak treatment

A new beak tipping system, based on an infra-red beam, may offer new hope in the battle against pecking.

The process involves exposing the tip of a chick’s beak to the effects of infra-red which, overtime, causes the targeted area to crumble away. The system, which could minimise stress and avoids open wounds, was just one of the reasons for optimism over the pecking issue that have been spelled out to producers in the south west.

At a meeting staged jointly by BFREPA and the NFU, experts also reported:

* Progress in the ‘beak blunting’ trials being staged as part of the Government’s ‘Action Plan on Beak Trimming’.

*The launch of new research to explore the importance of matching rearing conditions to those in the laying house.

* The belief that farming minister Ben Bradshaw is prepared to accept the continuation of beak tipping if the alternative is welfare problems.


The industry is currently facing a total ban on beak tipping after 2010 and the Exeter meeting was called to consider, with the help of a panel of experts, what hope existed that the deadline could be met.

ADAS principal consultant Stephen Edge explained details of the new infra-red system, developed by NovaTech, and already in use in America and in the UK on breeder flocks.

The process involves placing day-old chicks on a carousel with their heads held steady in order that the infra-red can be targeted. The part of the beak exposed to the beam turns white and crumbles away in the following twenty one days.

The meeting was told that before the system could become commercially available for layers a range of difficulties would need to be overcome including the accurate targeting of the infra-red beam.

Mr Edge showed photographs demonstrating the progress made by the beak blunting experiments being carried out by ADAS. As previously reported in the Ranger the trials are aimed at attempting to replicate the natural wearing effects on the beak that birds might experience in the wild. They involve using abrasive materials in feeders.

Mr Edge told the meeting: “The indications are that there is some blunting of the beak which seems to remove most of the hook. The birds do not look like they have been beak trimmed because the actual reduction is fractions of a millimetre. The question we now have to answer is whether, if the hook is removed, birds peck each other less.”

Mr Edge also revealed details of proposed research—funded by Defra—which will look at how conditions in the rearing house can influence how birds behave once moved to the laying farm. He explained that in a series of pecking workshops held throughout the country a strong feeling emerged that the way the birds were reared had a major effect on their behaviour during lay.


The research funding is yet to be awarded but ADAS has proposed a project using “a very practical approach” in which slats will be included in the rearing shed which will be equipped with exactly the same feeders and drinkers as those in the laying house.

“If successful in our bid,” he said, “we will start in the New Year to test the hypothesis that if we rear birds in identical conditions to those they will experience in the laying house then that could be a step forward.”

Chairman of the NFU’s poultry board, Charles Bourne, told the meeting that he had been involved in talks on pecking with Ben Bradshaw, the minister who has recently overturned tighter rules on organic stocking.

“The minister could not see a problem with beak tipping if it means avoiding welfare issues,” said Mr Bourne. “He appreciates that it is vital to ensure that welfare standards are maintained and he is willing to accept the argument about tipping. We have somebody there who can be convinced. He is prepared to give the industry extra time.”

But David Scott, managing director of Lohmann GB, emphasized the considerable difficulties faced by breed companies in producing ‘docile’ birds.

“The problem is,” he explained, “we are not attempting to breed for behaviour but against it. I could breed you a bird that did not peck at all but you would not want it. Pecking is a natural part of the bird’s make-up and investigative behaviour plus, of course, the way it eats.”

White egg layers, he said, presented far less pecking problems than brown.

“The white bird has been less genetically selected,” he said. “In Scandinavian countries white egg layers are used in free range with no particular problems.”

More than one producer suggested that one answer to the pecking issue could therefore be a move to re-introduce British consumers to the white egg.