As animal welfare becomes a big part of the global conversation due to a clear connection between animal welfare, productivity and consumer preferences, Kenchic is committed to positioning our business to fully meet and exceed international and national standards in delivering a product we can all be proud of. Kenchic believes that animal welfare is an integral component of our operations as a good human -chicken relationship is paramount to good farm performances as well as guaranteeing the 5 animal freedoms stated below.
1. Freedom from hunger, malnutrition and thirst
2. Freedom from fear and distress
3. Freedom from physical and thermal discomfort
4. Freedom from pain, injury and disease
5. Freedom to express normal patterns of behavior
At Kenchic, we commit to:
1. Providing birds with enough space by:
- Currently the breeder stocking density is 6 birds/m 2 while our open-sided broiler production stocking density is 20kg/m2. Our target is to progressively work towards having a maximum stocking density of 30kg/m 2 by 2030 for our environmentally controlled broiler production.
- Maintaining a zero tolerance against cages or multi-tiered systems across all our operations
2. Always avoiding thinning of flocks
3. Ensuring Suitable Environment for all our birds by:
- Providing enrichment materials such as perches at a ratio of 2 meters of perching space for 1000 birds and 2 pecking objects for 1000 birds in our direct and indirect (contract) farms.
- Providing at least one nest box for every 4.5 hens in our breeder operations
- Providing access to natural light with at least 8 hours of continuous darkness per 24- hour period in our open-sided houses and a commitment to provide at least 50 lux of light by 2030 in our environmentally controlled units.
- Ensuring good air quality by managing Ammonia and CO 2 concentration to be below 20ppm and 3,000 ppm respectively.
4. Adopting breeds that demonstrate higher welfare outcomes with a view of meeting the criteria of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ Broiler Breed Welfare Assessment Protocol.
5. Supporting humane slaughter by:
- Actively pressing our suppliers to support the latest research projects to find alternatives to electrical water bath as a matter of urgency.
- Support the call for the use of water bath stunning to be progressively phased out, for more humane systems without conscious inversion.
6. Providing appropriate diets and ensuring that forced molting is not permitted in our breeder operations
7. Minimizing application of non-painful procedures by adopting infrared beak trimming at the hatchery for our breeder chicks and commercial layer chicks sold to our clients.
8. Transport and slaughtering by ensuring that meat chicken are caught gently without inverting them, and the journey for both meat chicken and Day-old chicks is less than 5 hours.
9. Customer compliance by ensuring that only Day-Old Chick customers with transport vessels that meet the Kenya Bureau of Standards Specifications on animal welfare will be allowed to buy chicks from our operations by 2023.
10. Compliance and Transparency through demonstrating compliance with the above standards via annual third-party auditing and annual public reporting on progress towards this commitment.
Partnerships to Success
We work with international restaurant chains and animal welfare organizations in our quest to ensure that we meet and exceed international standards and consumer expectations. We are committed to growing our portfolio of partners both local and international in this journey to ensure we live by our commitments. We view this as a key step in improving animal welfare in Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa.
