Providing pecking enrichment blocks and other foraging substrates for laying hens satisfies natural pecking and foraging behaviors, reducing injurious feather pecking and improving flock welfare.
Enrichment blocks address a specific and highly motivated behavior in hens — pecking — that, when misdirected toward flock mates, causes injury and death. Hens in enriched environments with pecking blocks spend time actively foraging and exploring rather than idling in frustration or engaging in injurious pecking. The behavior is not optional: hens deprived of pecking targets redirect this motivation destructively. Providing blocks is one of the simplest, cheapest, and most immediately effective welfare interventions available to laying hen producers. The cost per bird is minimal, and the welfare and economic returns from reduced injurious pecking make it beneficial even from a purely commercial perspective.