Environmental Impacts In Domestic Birds: Towards Homeostasis, Efficiency and Well-Being

A sine qua non is that environmental stressors exert a negative effect on animals via the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis including corticosterone and met-enkephalin. Such stresses include cold stress, heat stress, high stocking density, feed restriction environmental and pollutants. This special topic provides a compendium of papers and reviews covering aspects of environmental impacts in domestic birds: towards homeostasis, efficiency and well-being. Homeostasis is a dynamic state of equilibrium adjusted and maintained by an integrated system of physiological processes.

Management directly affects the environment and indirectly affects the physiological mechanisms poultry use to maintain homeostasis and welfare. Many known stressors that can negatively affect the welfare of poultry. However, stressors can vary greatly within and across individual birds.

Health and welfare are influenced by multifactorial internal and external factors. Simply put, the health and welfare status of an animal is dependent on the severity and duration of external stressors and the internal stress response. The severity and duration of poultry health and welfare issues are directly influenced by management. There is clear evidence that the same environment will result in variations in the overall health and welfare of the animals.

The aim of this Research Topic is to highlight cutting edge and novel research investigating environmental effects on the physiology of poultry together with practices and tools that improve the health, welfare, and performance of poultry, and to encourage the scientific research community to further evaluate, validate, and integrate advanced management practices of poultry.

The scope of this Research Topic is to focus on the impact of environmental and animal management throughout the life of poultry raised in commercial agriculture systems. In addition to health and welfare, research areas should relate to poultry management practices and production performance.