In January, the animal welfare organization Global Animal Partnership (GAP) released updated production standards for meat chickens under its six-tier Animal Welfare Certified rating program.
Prior to the release, AWI submitted comments urging the organization to make two changes to its standards. First, we requested that GAP explicitly prohibit the use of ventilation shutdown (VSD) and VSD plus heat (VSD+) for the depopulation of flocks (for disease control or other reasons) for all tiers (referred to as “steps”) due to the suffering these methods cause. Second, we requested that in addition to requiring facilities to have an emergency plan that addresses fires, GAP mandate compliance with the National Fire Protection Association’s animal housing fire code to strengthen fire protections for chickens, in the wake of the significant death toll from fires that have occurred on poultry operations in the past decade.
GAP adopted AWI’s first suggestion, making it the first animal welfare certification program to explicitly prohibit VSD and VSD+ on certified farms. No changes were made to improve fire protections for chickens, however. Another change to the standards, which AWI supported, is the establishment of a five-year timeline within which all GAP-certified chicken producers must transition away from fast-growing breeds associated with adverse health and welfare impacts toward approved breeds associated with normal growth and better welfare outcomes.