Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks have required mandatory indoor housing orders for poultry across the UK and Europe. The welfare impacts of prolonged indoor confinement on free-range birds are significant.
HPAI housing orders present an inescapable welfare trade-off. Poultry exposed to wild bird contact face HPAI infection risk - a devastating and rapidly lethal disease for affected birds. Prolonged indoor confinement for free-range birds substantially reduces their welfare by removing outdoor access, environmental complexity and natural foraging. Producers face the challenge of maintaining welfare indoors for birds adapted to ranging outdoors, often over the most challenging winter period. Vaccination programmes offer a potential path to reduced housing order frequency and duration - a meaningful welfare improvement for millions of birds if they prove effective at field scale.