“Voices for Animals” spoke out against the ban on poultry walking

In mid-April, it became known that the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation had developed a draft of new veterinary rules for keeping poultry, which should come into force on March 1, 2025. A supporter of introducing a ban on the free range of poultry, President of the Russian Poultry Union Vladimir Fisinin, considers this restriction to be appropriate from the point of view of biological safety.

The project caused a heated discussion between poultry farmers and the authors of the bill. In particular, the People's Farmer association sent a letter to the current Minister of Agriculture of RUSSIA Oksana Lut with a request to exclude the ban on free range from the new veterinary rules as an excessive measure.

Representative of the public organization “Voices for Animals”, Candidate of Biological Sciences Ilya Zlobin explained that walking gives birds the opportunity to move more, which reduces stress levels and strengthens the immune system . Mobility, sun and fresh air make them less susceptible to disease. 

The negative effect of such a strict restriction is obvious, the expert noted, and the increase in the epizootic situation in poultry farming after its introduction is doubtful. First of all, farms and producers of organic products will be affected, where the number of poultry is small, which minimizes the risk of the infection spreading to large enterprises: contacts between the livestock of both are virtually impossible. At large poultry farms, it is much more likely that the livestock will be infected by wild birds, which even enter closed enterprises.

At the same time, in industrial poultry farms, areas for livestock walking are fenced with walls (at least mesh) and protected by a roof, that is, contact of farm poultry with representatives of wild fauna and their waste products is unlikely. Outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza can be prevented by mandatory vaccination at industrial enterprises, but according to ROSSELKHOZNADZOR, large companies do not practice it. 

Amendments to the project from the organization “Voices for Animals” concern not only free range, but also other aspects of the welfare of farm poultry. Social activists recommend optimizing lighting and ventilation in buildings for its maintenance, expanding the available area of ​​cells, etc.