Bird flu: When you need to keep your hens indoors

Disclaimer: Please note that this text has been translated from Danish to English automatically and may contain errors. 

When hens are kept indoors due to bird flu, there are a number of things you can do to improve conditions to avoid stress, feather pecking and, in the worst case, cannibalism among the hens.

The problems are greatest on farms where hens spend most of their time outdoors. Here, confinement will be perceived as a significant restriction on their behaviour. That's why it's important to implement preventive measures no later than the day the hens are confined.

If possible, you should firstly give the hens more space indoors. At the same time, you should change the care of the animals so that you move the hens' occupation and entertainment into the henhouse. You should also optimise the nutrient supply and ensure optimal climate, hygiene and light in the henhouse.

More space

In connection with avian influenza, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration rules require you to keep your hens under cover. This means that you are allowed to establish a covered area in connection with the henhouse to replace the real outdoor area.

A heavy tarpaulin can serve as a permanent roof in small hen houses, but you should be aware that rainwater must be able to run off. You should delimit the covered outdoor area with walls of heavy mesh from ground to roof. You can use galvanised or plastic-coated wire fencing with meshes of maximum 5 x 10 cm.

Another option is to put a greenhouse tunnel as an extension of the henhouse. Put boards at the bottom on the inside so the hens don't peck holes in the plastic walls.

A third option is to give the hens access to a larger indoor area. Maybe you can include a machine house, barn or other sheds. It's all about giving the hens more space to replace the access to the outdoor area. Make sure the new area is hygienic, dry and attractive.

Feed roughage in a new way

When hens don't have access to roughage in the coop, they need to be given roughage in a different way. Make sure to feed the same type and amount of feed at the same time every day.

Feed the roughage indoors or in the covered outdoor area. This will keep the hens busy, promote gut health and prevent feather pecking and cannibalism.

For smaller flocks, you can feed vegetables such as lettuce, carrots - preferably with tops, beetroot and kale. Remember that it takes a few days for hens to learn to eat root vegetables, so help the process along by chopping them up.

For larger flocks, silage of various types is relevant. It can be maize, grain, legume or grass-clover silage. All silage should be finely chopped. Feed 20-30g per hen per day fed on the litter or in hay hedges.

Fresh grass is also an option, but make sure the blades of grass are short, harvested very early or finely cut. Feed a maximum of 10-15g of fresh grass per hen per day.

Good advice on bedding

• Remove mould and lay new bedding if it is wet or crusty.

• Supplement the bedding with straw, hay or wood shavings.

• Use chopped wheat or barley straw. The litter used should be interesting to the hens so that they spend time examining it.

• Mix coarse sand into the litter so that the hens can find gizzards.

Set the light so the hens can find their way around

The light should be bright enough for the hens to find feed and water, see each other and see the litter and roughage. In practice, this means that the brightness should be around 15-20 lux. Remember that very high light levels increase the risk of cannibalism in situations where the hens are stressed. Therefore, you should ensure that the brightness in the barn is moderate when you close off the outdoor area. Make sure you never reduce the day length of the light. It is only the brightness that you need to adjust.

In this context, pay special attention to windows and other openings. In organic barns, daylight must be available, but the light can be diffused or indirect. The sun should not shine directly on the chickens. Put curtains or other coverings on windows and openings.

If you have a larger commercial barn, it's probably equipped with brightness control, so you can control the brightness with a button. If you have a smaller barn, you may need to paint the light sources more or less to dim the light. The recommendation is to use oxide red, which is the powder you mix with lime when you want to whitewash a house.

What to do if cannibalism occurs

If cannibalism has occurred in a flock, you need to dim the lights considerably. When you see the first hen with bleeding wounds, dim the lights. Then keep a close eye on the flock. If more hens with bleeding wounds appear, dim the lights more. Continue until the cannibalism stops.

Remember to remove cannibalised animals from the barn. Isolate slightly injured animals in separate rooms until the wounds have healed. Kill injured animals.

Once a few days have passed without bleeding wounds and cannibalism, start gently increasing the light intensity, observing the flock and ensuring that cannibalism does not reoccur.

Organic status - what happens to it?

Organic poultry can maintain organic status when the poultry has no access to outdoor areas due to a government order.

This is possible because organic poultry farming includes many other legal requirements in addition to the outdoor access requirement. If you continue to fulfil the other rules and requirements that apply to organic poultry, you can maintain your organic status while the animals are kept indoors.

Guidance for organic poultry producers under confinement requirements for poultry (pdf 16 pages, in Danish)

Guidance for organic poultry producers under confinement requirements (audio file, in Danish)