Specific housing conditions and husbandry practices for poultry
Article 12
1. Poultry shall not be kept in cages. 2. Water fowl shall have access to a stream, pond, lake or a pool whenever the weather and hygienic conditions permit in order to respect their species-specific needs and animal welfare requirements. 3. Buildings for all poultry shall meet the following conditions: (a) at least one third of the floor area shall be solid, that is, not of slatted or of grid construction, and covered with a litter material such as straw, wood shavings, sand or turf; (b) in poultry houses for laying hens, a sufficiently large part of the floor area available to the hens shall be available for the collection of bird droppings; (c) they shall have perches of a size and number commensurate with the size of the group and of the birds as laid down in Annex III. (d) they shall have exit/entry pop-holes of a size adequate for the birds, and these pop-holes shall have a combined length of at least 4 m per 100 m 2 area of the house available to the birds; (e) each poultry house shall not contain more than: (i) 4 800 chickens, (ii) 3 000 laying hens, (iii) 5 200 guinea fowl, (iv) 4 000 female Muscovy or Peking ducks or 3 200 male Muscovy or Peking ducks or other ducks, (v) 2 500 capons, geese or turkeys; (f) the total usable area of poultry houses for meat production on any single unit, shall not exceed 1 600 m 2 ; (g) poultry houses shall be constructed in a manner allowing all birds easy access to open air area. 4. Natural light may be supplemented by artificial means to provide a maximum of 16 hours light per day with a continuous nocturnal rest period without artificial light of at least eight hours. 5. To prevent the use of intensive rearing methods, poultry shall either be reared until they reach a minimum age or else shall come from slow-growing poultry strains. Where slow-growing poultry strains are not used by the operator the following minimum age at slaughter shall be: (a) 81 days for chickens, (b) 150 days for capons, (c) 49 days for Peking ducks, (d) 70 days for female Muscovy ducks, (e) 84 days for male Muscovy ducks, (f) 92 days for Mallard ducks, (g) 94 days for guinea fowl, (h) 140 days for male turkeys and roasting geese and (i) 100 days for female turkeys. The competent authority shall define the criteria of slow-growing strains or draw up a list thereof and provide this information to operators, other Member States and the Commission.