Small Poultry Flocks in Alberta: Demographics and Practices
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The distribution, composition, and management characteristics of small "backyard" poultry flocks may have important implications in the spread of both avian diseases and zoonoses of public health concern. Although the prevalence of small poultry flocks has increased in Alberta, Canada, in recent years, there is minimal demographic information available for these populations. To gain initial epidemiologic insight into this growing population and potential areas of risk, a survey was conducted to characterize the sector. Information on flock demographics and bird health, as well as production and biosecurity practices, were gathered and analyzed from 206 surveys, representing respondents from 43 counties. These results revealed great diversity of both owners and flocks, characterized by wide variations in flock sizes and composition. Laying hens were the most commonly reported type of bird (93.4%), followed by ducks and geese (35.3%), turkeys, (33.8%), and broiler chickens (33.1%). Notably, 58.1% of owners reported having more than one type of bird in their flock, with many owners never, or only sometimes, separating flocks based on species or purpose. Personal consumption (81.8%) and sale of eggs (48.2%) were the most frequently cited purposes for owning a flock. Our findings suggest that owners in Alberta are predominantly new to production; most (73.1%) have kept birds for less than 5 yr and 25.6% for less than 1 yr. Flock health parameters revealed inconsistent use of medical interventions, such as vaccinations, treatments, and veterinary consultation. Data on the sourcing, housing, and movement of birds, as well as movement of people and visitors, reveal substantial potential for contact to occur directly and indirectly between flocks and humans. Additionally, basic husbandry and biosecurity practices were found to be inconsistent and often inadequate, highlighting important gaps and opportunities to improve the health of Alberta's small poultry flocks and mitigate risks to public health. These quantitative and qualitative results provide a baseline characterization of the sector and identify risks and challenges that may serve to inform the development and delivery of future study and interventions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".