THE ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF KEEPING TURKEY IN A WAY THAT SUITS THEIR SPECIES

The demand for turkey meat has risen considerably and continually duri ng the past few years. From 1995 to 1996 alone per capita consumption in Germany rose by 10%. At the same time home production dropped by mo re than 7% and imports of turkey meat increased by more than 15%. This shows that turkeys production has moved abroad and suggests that the fattening of turkeys in Germany has lost the battle in an internationa lly open market. The associated conditions (laws, regulations, licence s, regional and local arbitrary decisions) are a major cause of this. In addition to this extreme demands are sometimes made by individual c ompany groupings which, if realised, and particularly against the back ground of internationally interlinked markets, will lead to considerab le competitive disadvantages and thus to further transfer of productio n abroad. From the point of view of animal welfare this transfer of tu rkey production abroad is against any improvement in conditions for th ese birds as turkeys are held under less restrictive conditions in oth er countries. The present paper develops a method of keeping turkeys t hat suits their species and this is presented against the background o f European and German animal welfare objectives on the one hand and on the basis of scientifically ascertained knowledge and existing experi ence.