Beak trimming action group resume
Members of the Beak Trimming Action Group (BTAG) have resumed their work following the Government’s decision to postpone a ban on beak trimming that was originally due to come into force this year.
BTAG was reconvened in January this year and the body is now starting to map out its plan of approach for the coming years. Agriculture Minister Jim Paice has said that there will be another review into the practice of beak trimming in 2015, with a view to a ban being reinstated in 2016. BTAG will be working towards the review in 2015, and a Defra spokeswoman told the Ranger that members of the group were currently working out how to move forward.
"BTAG has met twice since January and there will be a third meeting later this year. Because BTAG is quite a large group of people we have put together a small steering group from the BTAG membership to take forward work between the larger BTAG meetings. BTAG and its steering group are currently looking at all available options to bring about a ban on beak trimming of laying hens."
A ban on the use of beak trimming was due to come into force at the beginning of this year, but Jim Paice formally announced at the Egg and Poultry Industry Conference (EPIC) in November that the ban was being lifted. He said that farmers would be able to continue using the procedure for the moment, although the Government was specifying the use of infra-red beak trimming, and he said that the Government did still intend to move towards a ban. It was looking to do so in 2016.
"We will be working with the industry and the Beak Trimming Action Group to achieve this, so I don’t want you to think ’well that’s five years away, we need not worry any more about it.’ I think you should worry about it. I think the Beak Trimming Action Group really does need now to find a way forward," he said.
BTAG was established in 2002 and had been working towards implementation of the ban in 2011. The group is comprised of representatives from industry, welfare groups, veterinarians, academics and Government. Following the Government’s decision to postpone the ban, BTAG has been set a new target date, and it will be looking for ways in which the practice of beak trimming can be brought to an end without impacting on other animal welfare issues. The Government’s decision to lift the ban was taken on the advice of the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), whose recommendation was made because of its concerns about feather pecking and cannibalism. It said that the ban should be deferred until it could be demonstrated reliably under commercial conditions that non-beak-trimmed laying hens could be managed without a greater risk to their welfare than that caused by beak trimming itself.
Compassion in World Farming had appealed to Ministers to press ahead with the ban as planned in 2011, but Jim Paice said when he announced that the ban would be lifted, "The Government would like to see an end to this practice, but quite clearly to ban it now as the current law stands would be very premature and the Farm Animal Welfare Council has advised me that that would be the case."
BTAG is now starting to work towards the review in 2015. The Defra spokeswoman told the Ranger, "Clearly it is a difficult issue but we will be looking at ways that we could reduce the risk of injurious pecking to allow routine beak trimming of laying hens to be banned without reducing the overall welfare of the birds." She said that a lot of research had already been funded into the issue and she pointed to research currently being carried out into injurious pecking at the University of Bristol. "That is feeding into our considerations."
The Bristol research is now into the final year of a three-year programme funded by the Tubney Charitable Trust. The work involves reviewing evidence and testing it commercially. Dr Claire Weeks of the Bristol research team has indicated that the trials the team have been running with volunteers have been promising. "We are very hopeful that the results of this project will lead to significant benefits for the egg industry," she said in the Ranger recently. The research team has been trying a number of ’practical strategies’ to discourage hens from pecking each other on 50 flocks around the country. Another 50 flocks have been used as control groups. The control groups have been managed the same as before and the researchers have been monitoring the levels of feather loss and pecking behaviour in all the flocks. They are looking to see whether the measures used in these trials would work on large commercial flocks.
The results of the research will be amongst the things informing the work of BTAG over the coming months and years up to the review in 2015.
