The Amadori company is one of the most important poultry meat producers in Italy and, as an INTAQT partner, the company was involved in the “On-farm visit” activity planned in the project.

Different employees of Amadori group together with researchers from the University of Perugia and the University of Bologna have conducted measurements concerning animal welfare and meat quality traits in several Amadori farms.

Farms were chosen according to the different intensification gradient from the more intensive system, where fast growing chickens are raised indoor and fed conventional diets, to the less intensive one that is characterized by the use of a medium growing chicken genotype reared in free range conditions.

Five different rearing systems for a total of 25 farms located in central southern Italy were included in the activities carried out in the framework of the INTAQT project.  Each farm was visited by Amadori technicians and UNIPG researchers for evaluating welfare conditions of the chickens through the use of the EBENE App.

This evaluation highlights that all the different Amadori rearing systems ensure adequate welfare standards and no particular differences were found among the five farms belonging to the same rearing system. Moreover, during the visit, the UNIPG researchers interviewed the farmer and filled out a questionnaire to record data that will be used for the multicriteria evaluation.

UNIBO researchers collected meat samples from chickens belonging to the farms visited for the welfare assessment and different analyses are ongoing in order to asses the link between the intrinsic meat quality and the husbandry system. All data recorded in this activity will allow the INTAQT project to have a complete vision of the main husbandry systems used in Italy and the effects of these farming systems on the main animal welfare and product quality traits.