Shorten the beak

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The partial removal of parts of the beak is referred to as beak shortening or also known as beak clipping or beak cutting. This may be necessary as a veterinary intervention in the event of excessive beak growth or as a preventive measure against cannibalism in chickens. The latter is usually called touching or cropping . Feather pecking and cannibalism are behavioral disorders that have been occurring in laying hens and turkeys for decades, regardless of the type of housing.

Therapeutic beak shortening

Excessive beak growth in a budgie - a medical indication for beak trimming

Therapeutic beak shortening is particularly necessary in the case of excessive or disturbed beak growth. It mainly occurs in parrots. The causes are varied:

  • Posture errors such as insufficient climbing opportunities, which lead to reduced wear on the beak
  • Malnutrition, especially a lack of vitamins
  • Liver damage
  • trauma
  • Feather and beak disease in parrots

The beak is shortened with corrective pliers , files or cylinder cutters and can usually be done while awake. If bleeding occurs, careful bleeding must be stopped with adrenaline swabs or iron (III) chloride .

Poultry production

Cock with a docked beak

When keeping chickens and turkeys in large groups, cannibalism is an economic problem. This economic problem is caused by the fact that feather pecking increases the mortality rate in the herd. Pecking, which is common with chickens, damages the plumage of other chickens, causing flesh wounds and inflammation. The aim of trimming the beak is to prevent cannibalism. The tips of the beaks are cut off by a laser or by means of an infrared beam. Infrared treatment is used exclusively in Lower Saxony. With this method, the beak is not severed, but rather the tissue structure of the beak is interfered with. After about 10 to 14 days, the treated part of the beak falls off due to the action of rubbing during feed intake. The severed tissue on the beak is about 3 to 4 mm. Shortening the beak has been used in poultry farming for decades. The beak shortening of broilers, laying hens and ducks is no longer practiced in Germany. One reason for shortening the beak is to avoid high suffering from plumage damage, which also entails high mortality rates. However, the former Agriculture Minister of Lower Saxony, Christian Meyer, emphasized in 2013: “Shortening the beak is a painful procedure. The routine shortening of billions of millions of chickens is not necessary according to experience in Austria ”. Investigations by the veterinary pathologist Dr. Wolfram Haider suggest that the IR method is gentler than the usual shortening of the beak.

In Austria, beak shortening is hardly practiced any more. Shortening the beak is not forbidden by law in Austria, but with very few exceptions it is forbidden in both the AMA seal of approval and the "animal welfare tested" seal of approval. This has been implemented across Austria since 2005. In Austria and Switzerland, an alternative to shortening the beak is occasionally used. A roughened disc is placed in the feed pans so that the animals grind their beaks with little feed. There are no reliable scientific results on the effects on feather pecking and cannibalism. The Austrian experience with untreated laying hens shows that it is possible to control the situation with feather pecking and cannibalism through measures of herd management, advice from the compound feed manufacturers and scientific support. If the measures do not work, however, a drastic reduction in light is carried out in the barn. It is then no longer possible to drive with brighter lights so that the hens live in a dark stall for the rest of the laying period.

In Germany, the tips of the beak in turkeys are shortened prophylactically in most cases. In July 2015, the Central Association of the German Poultry Industry signed a voluntary agreement with the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture to refrain from shortening the beak in Germany. Since 2017, no more pullets with shortened beak have been housed in Germany. In both Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, bill trimming was banned on December 31, 2016. As of 2017, eggs from hens with shortened bills will no longer be offered in most supermarket chains.

Animal rights activists criticize the practice of cutting beaks as a typical symptom of intensive animal husbandry, in which the animals are adapted to the keeping conditions. Animal rights organizations such as the Albert Schweitzer Foundation for Our Neighborhood are committed to ending beak trimming.

Web links

Wiktionary: Touchieren  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ a b Michael Pees: Key symptoms in parrots and parakeets. Enke, 2nd edition 2011, ISBN 978-3-8304-1084-3 , pp. 182-199.
  3. ↑ Fries, R. and Flisikowski, K., Hans Eisenmann-Zentrum, TU-Munich, Molecular Genetics of Feather Picking in Laying Hens , 2009
  4. ↑ a b Schnabel shortening ( memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Science and Information Center for Sustainable Poultry Management
  5. ↑ Lower Saxony Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection of July 8, 2013: Lower Saxony stops shortening the beak of laying hens
  6. ↑ https://www.dgs-magazin.de/4-Osnabruecker-Gefluegelsymposium-Schnabelkupieren-in-der-Diskussion,QUlEPTM3MzY2MTkmTUlEPTQ3Mg.html
  7. ↑ No shortening of the beak of chickens: Germany takes Austria as an example. In: derStandard.at. July 16, 2013, accessed December 14, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Final report. Current management and housing conditions for turkeys that have not been trimmed beak in organic farming. University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, 2013, accessed on December 9, 2015 .
  9. ↑ No need to cut the beak: the poultry industry signs a voluntary agreement with Federal Minister of Agriculture Schmidt. Central Association of the German Poultry Industry, July 9, 2015, accessed on December 9, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Lower Saxony Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection from August 5, 2014: From 2017 onwards, the Schnabel will stay on nationwide!
  11. ↑ Finish beak trimming. Albert Schweitzer Foundation for Our Environment, accessed on December 8, 2015 .