Animal welfare and poultry productivity: A short review

Abstract

The aim of this review is to present production alternatives based on animal welfare standards and good management practices on broiler and posture breeding. The excessive intensive production of eggs and chicken meat comes from the demand for food from a growing world population. And it has forgotten good animal husbandry and management practices. Which causes an imbalance of the sympathetic nervous system and adrenal medullary tissue that control the response of the poultry to stress, raising catecholamine levels inducing the release of glucose causing liver, heart and neuronal failure. these effects become visible due to the increase of diseases since the immune system is depressed, food intake decreases, oxytocin inhibition, which results in reduced reproduction and even death of the poultry. The incorporation of animal welfare standards imposed in intensive breeding, as well as, the production of eggs and meat under production systems (grazing) and backyard production become a sustainable alternative that maximizes the welfare of the poultry.