INCUBATING eggs in the dark might improve the welfare of battery-farmed chickens.
Chickens raised close together become hostile, regularly pecking the feathers of their cage-mates. This reduces egg production and even kills some birds. In chicks, pecking is thought to be a natural form of social exploration: the birds often softly peck at each other as they get acquainted, and usually stop once they are familiarised. But the ability to discriminate between known and unknown birds can be disrupted by exposure to light in the last week of incubation, which happens to most commercial chicken eggs.
So Bernd Riedstra at…
