Document type DG SANTE audit report 2021-7247 from the European Commission
Author: DG SANTE
Preview: This report describes the outcome of an audit of Cyprus, carried out remotely from 14 to 18 June 2021 as part of the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety work programme.
The objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of official controls to ensure the protection of the welfare of laying hens at all the stages of production.
The laying hen sector operates in a market that appears to be mainly price-oriented, with the number of laying hens kept in cages in Cyprus having increased by 12.6% between 2019 and 2020. There are no specific quality assurance schemes for, or including, the welfare of laying hens.
Cyprus has a system in place to ensure the welfare of laying hens throughout their life cycle and in all production systems. All farms are inspected annually yet the control system lacks a risk-based analysis justifying the appropriateness of such a frequency.
The competent authorities cannot monitor compliance with the maximum stocking limits established when laying farms are registered because they do not receive notifications of the movement of birds to and from the farms. This is counterbalanced by the annual inspections of all farms.
Updated documented procedures are unclear, as it is not possible to distinguish what is mandatory and what is advisory in the new manual of instructions. Consequently, there are reduced assurances that official controls are appropriately and consistently verifying legal requirements, including that nests satisfy the hens' ethological need to lay eggs in a separate space.
Annual control plans require all laying hen farms to be inspected annually and the veterinary authorities generally meet this target. However, the central level authorities focus more on monitoring progress against that target than on the quality and effectiveness of the controls.
The authorities do not use animal-based indicators to monitor on-farm welfare at slaughterhouses that receive end-of-lay hens, even though officials in the field are aware of their potential value. Using the indicators collected at the farm of origin and at slaughterhouse level could contribute to getting a better overview of the welfare of laying hens in Cyprus.
The central competent authority has basic information about the farming systems for pullets and limited information on how beak-trimming is carried out. The current basic standards on the welfare of pullets and beak-trimming may benefit from the good practices described in the updated documented procedures.
Male day-old chicks are culled using a humane system of stunning killing that should benefit from official supervision.
The report contains three recommendations to the competent authority aimed at addressing the shortcomings identified.
