Pasture Raised Birds: The Next Frontier

The poultry market continues to evolve and innovate. As consumer preferences change, producers look to differentiate themselves, and interest in animal welfare grows. Pasture-raised production has emerged as an area of significant interest. In many ways, this type of rearing is more aligned with how chickens have been raised for centuries. 

The question now is how do we do this at scale, and what are some of the specific disease concerns to be thinking about with this type of production?

Biosecurity in an Open Environment

Perhaps the most fundamental challenge of pasture-raised production is biosecurity. Conventional indoor operations can control access points, sanitize surfaces, and restrict contact between flocks and the outside world. Pasture operations, by their very nature, cannot. As Dr. Darrin Karcher, Associate Professor of Animal Science at Purdue University, told us “you do the best you can to control what you know.” With so many open access points, meaningful biosecurity is especially challenging in these environments. 

The disease risks that flow from this reality are significant and specific. Proximity to wild bird populations is one of the most serious concerns. Migratory waterfowl are well-established vectors for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), and pasture flocks have no meaningful barrier against contact. Soil-borne pathogens present another layer of risk: for example, Clostridium perfringens, the organism behind necrotic enteritis, thrives in the organic matter-rich environments that pasture systems create. And chronic exposure to environmental stressors — weather, predators, and variable feed intake — can impact immune function and microbiome stability, and make birds more susceptible across the board.

The Research Gap

Despite the rapid growth of pasture-raised production, the research and extension infrastructure to support producers has not kept pace. We hear this from some of our customers who have pasture-raised animals - there are many aspects of this management style that have not been well-researched at scale. 

Dr. Karcher raised a good example of a key research question: How cold of an environment can birds tolerate? This question has both important animal welfare implications, and may dictate where the pasture-raised industry looks to expand its footprint. Currently, evidence-based guidance can help settle some of these industry questions. Yet, this is an area where investment in applied research, better pathogen monitoring tools, and shared data across operations could have an outsized impact. 

Getting Ahead of What You Can't See

This is exactly where Barnwell Bio is focused. Our metagenomic surveillance platform was built agnostic to the production system a producer may be utilizing. By analyzing barn-level environmental samples through shotgun metagenomic sequencing, we can detect pathogens, track antimicrobial resistance genes, and identify emerging threats before clinical signs appear. Because we’re looking at a broad spectrum of targets, we can keep an eye out for pathogens producers know to look for, and others they might not expect that are transmitted from the open environment. 

For producers with pasture-raised systems, navigating a complex and under-researched disease landscape, this kind of early intelligence isn't a nice-to-have, it's critical. As this segment of the market grows, so does the importance of knowing what's in your flock's environment before it becomes a problem you're managing instead of preventing.