Perching is a fundamental behavioural need for laying hens that serves bone health, predator avoidance motivation, and natural rest pattern expression.
Perching welfare connects behavioural needs to physical health outcomes in a way that illustrates the integrated nature of animal welfare. Hens that cannot perch are frustrated in a strong innate motivation to elevate themselves for overnight rest, a motivation so strong it reflects millions of years of predator pressure on ancestral ground-dwelling birds. The frustration of this motivation is a welfare harm in itself. Additionally, the mechanical bone loading provided by perching contributes to bone health in a species with calcium demands that already predispose them to osteoporosis. Well-designed perching systems that allow all hens to perch simultaneously at appropriate heights therefore provide double welfare benefit: satisfying behavioural motivation and improving skeletal health. The challenge is perch design that provides benefit without creating fall injury risk that contributes to keel bone fractures.