A note on behaviour of poultry exposed to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations

Killing poultry by means of whole house gassing with carbon dioxide (CO2) is an important tool in disease control. The behaviour of ducks, broilers, laying hens and turkeys was observed to assess differences in susceptibility between species and to assess animal welfare implications following exposure to CO2 treatment. All birds were individually exposed to CO2 concentrations, which increased from 0% to 45% at a rate of 14 l/min. The results discussed in this paper suggest that there are slight to occasionally significant differences, which might also be age related between different poultry species exposed to whole house gassing with CO2. However, these differences are not so substantial so as to make it necessary to set different welfare criteria in relation to whole house gassing for the examined species.