Commercial turkeys in barren intensive housing develop severe behavioural problems that enrichment can substantially reduce.
Commercial turkeys in barren environments channel their frustrated exploratory drives into injurious pecking of conspecifics. Beak trimming — used to reduce injury from pecking — addresses the symptom while leaving the cause unresolved. Enrichment-based approaches that satisfy exploration and manipulation drives at the source are both more welfare-positive and, in well-managed systems, commercially comparable. The welfare transformation of turkey farming requires both enrichment provision and slower growth rates that reduce the physical impairments that restrict movement.