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Tina Widowski

Role: Eggs Farmers of Canada Research Chair in Poultry Welfare, Professor

Tina Widowski is an animal welfare scientist interested in the housing and management of farm animals. With training in behaviour and physiology, she has studied such diverse topics as the endocrinology of nest building in sows, the behavioural responses of hens to different lighting systems, the ontogeny of feeding and drinking in piglets and motivation for dust bathing and nesting in laying hens. Her research group has tackled the transport and handling of market pigs and methods for euthanasia for piglets and poultry. Her goal is to determine how to match agricultural systems to animal behavioural biology in order to develop best practices for care. Armed with a MSc and PhD in animal science from the University of Illinois-Urbana, Widowski worked as a researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, managing two colonies of monkeys and studying their reproductive behaviour and biology. She joined the University of Guelph in 1990, where she began working in the area of poultry welfare. In 2007, she was appointed Director of the Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare, and in 2009 named University Chair in Animal Welfare. In 2011, Widowski was awarded the Egg Farmers of Canada Research Chair in Poultry Welfare.

Food from Thought project(s): Precision poultry management: Tackling sustainability issues of egg and chicken production

Project category: Livestock Research

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