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Glatz, P., and M. Bourke. 2006. Beak Trimming Handbook for Egg Producers.

Don Bell, Poultry Specialist (emeritus)

University of California

This small (79 pages), but full-of-useful-information booklet is essential reading for everyone in the egg production and pullet rearing businesses—owners, managers, supervisors and crew members. The problems of aggressive pecking and cannibalism in chicken flocks are thoroughly discussed. The booklet has 8 chapters with topics including: pecking problems, beak-trimming methods, best practice beak trimming, managing beak-trimmed birds, welfare of beak-trimmed birds, industry views on beak trimming, alternative to beak trimming and strategies for minimizing cannibalism.

Sub-chapters discuss topics such as: types of pecking, beak trimming methods, handling birds, monitoring and evaluating the process, production responses, welfare, public perceptions, worker safety, injuries to the beak and to the bird, training the trimming crew, remedies to cannibalism, new techniques, and biosecurity.

The sections on bird handling and biosecur-ity are especially applicable to any crew-type activity including vaccination and moving crews. Explicit instructions are given regarding the proper way of handling and transporting birds. Detailed precautions to avoid the transfer of disease from one location to another via handling crews are also described.

The need to evaluate the process through monitoring and scoring is discussed with examples of the required measurements taken at critical ages. Considerable detail is devoted to the need for on-going control of the trimming operation with descriptive evaluations of the results for future improvements.

The uniqueness of this book is its very narrow subject matter range and the depth into which it covers the subject. Short discussions of this nature are very useful in the industry as all sides of an issue can be discussed in a relatively small amount of space along with the many complicating factors associated with alternative approaches. Most textbooks require countless hours to read and absorb; this booklet can be read and digested in just a few hours.

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Bell, D. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Bell, D.