A survey on management practices and attitudes of broiler buy-back farmers towards farm animal welfare in Gampaha district, Sri Lanka: a case study of a commercial broiler chicken processing company

Abstract

Contract grower/buy-back farming system is well established in the present poultry industry in Sri Lanka. This study assessed farmer profile, key management practices and attitudes of the buy-back farmers towards broiler chicken welfare. A total of 40 buy-back farmers in Gampaha District, Sri Lanka were interviewed via telephone conversations using an open structured type questionnaire. Data were statistically analyzed using SPSS version 23.0. Relationships among variables were computed by Ordinal Logistic Regression. Majority (56%) of the farmers were in between the age group of 35-50 y, and 17.6% were females. The most popular flock sizes were in between 1000-5000 birds (64.1%). All the farmers stated that they purposely check for sick or injured birds and 97.4% of them practiced isolation of sick birds. However, no one euthanized severely injured or sick birds. All farmers informed that they practice up-right position when catching and handling birds. Half of the farmers (56.4%) were not well aware of concepts of farm animal welfare. Farmers’ attitudes on farm animal welfare, transportation, and slaughtering were compared with farmers’ profile and resulted in no significant relationship. There was a positive relationship that tend to be significant (P = 0.051) with welfare awareness (YES) vs the welfare positive attitudes on handling of birds. When flock size increased, farmers’ awareness of pain of birds was significantly decreased (P<0.05). In conclusion, a considerable number of buy-back farmers had poor or uncertain attitudes regarding broiler chicken welfare, and their management practices were mostly production-focused. It is suggested that poultry welfare awareness programs would be beneficial to improve farmers' positive attitudes to ensure the welfare of broiler chickens.