Hiding Places Can Improve Farmed Animals’ Welfare

Many animals naturally use hiding places in nature to give birth, lay eggs, and conceal themselves from others and the elements. But on today’s intensive farms, cages and pens are often barren. The authors of this paper wonder whether providing hiding spaces can help improve farmed animal welfare. 

The authors looked at 151 studies published between 1976-2021 that explored the use of hiding spaces or “hides” for farmed animals commonly raised in North America. Their aim was to understand which species are most commonly provided hides, why they’re given hides (for example, as a place to lay eggs or for general enrichment), and how hiding places affect the animals’ well-being. 

Most papers studied chickens (49%), 85% of which focused on laying hens and the other 15% on so-called “broiler” chickens. Other predominantly studied animals included cows, foxes, and fishes. In 56% of papers, the hides were studied as a place to give birth or lay eggs, while 56% of papers looked at hides for general environmental enrichment. Other papers evaluated hiding spaces as a space for newborn, sick, or hurt animals. 

When evaluating the impact of hiding spaces on an animal’s welfare, the studies mainly recorded whether animals used the hides, whether they tended to be physically healthier or more productive when using hides, and their apparent emotional states. In this way, the studies measured whether the hides had a positive, negative, or neutral effect. In general, providing hiding places seemed to improve animals’ emotional experiences, health, social life, and productivity. Meanwhile, when hides seemed to have a negative impact on animal welfare, it was often because animals fought one another to be able to use them.

The papers also showed interesting species-based insights. For example, (most) chickens, quails, and ducks were comforted with nesting boxes and often used them to lay eggs. When provided with hides, many quails became friendlier with each other and had more emotionally stable chicks. Deer, cows, and ewes also tended to prefer using hiding spaces before, during, and after giving birth, especially when injured or ill. Goats and pigs got along better with their pen mates when provided hides.

Foxes tended to be physically healthier and took better care of their young when given places to hide, while minks often became less fearful of humans. Similarly, fishes generally became friendlier, physically healthier, and appeared less stressed with hides in their enclosures. Rabbits also seemed to benefit from having secluded nesting and general hiding spaces, but the research on rabbits is limited.

In general, the results suggest that providing hiding spaces to animals housed on farms can help enhance their social dynamics, comfort levels, health, and emotional stability while also reducing their physiological symptoms of stress. As such, hides seem to be an important environmental enrichment feature that animal advocates should focus on when trying to improve the quality of farm environments. While farms will never be able to mimic what animals would experience in nature — and the goal, of course, is to end animal farming altogether — offering hiding spaces is one way to preserve animals’ dignity and allow them to carry out some of their natural behaviors.