Integrated Pest Management in Laying Hen Facilities

Dear Colleagues, 

Integrated pest management (IPM) is a systematic, holistic and often multidisciplinary strategy for managing pests, in this instance related to laying hens, focusing on monitoring, preventing, avoiding, controlling and, if possible, suppressing their detrimental effects. These pests can be a welfare, economic, public health/zoonotic, morbidity, or mortality problem. Such pests can be a problem for poultry hens, poultry workers, veterinarians, and poultry facility visitors. These pests can reside permanently or occasionally on the animals or in their surroundings, or can be responsible for occasional attacks. Preference would be given to strategies and approaches minimizing environmental risks, maximizing animal welfare and public/food safety as an example.

In recent years, many innovations in IPM have been proposed, and the aim of this Special Issue is to publish original research papers or reviews concerning IPM in poultry hen facilities (technical, education, economic, policies, management, any poultry system welcome). Manuscripts may focus on, but not exclusively, identifying such pests, monitoring their impact or any curative/preventive approach, educational, legal, and policy-related strategies from blue-sky hypotheses to implemented fieldwork.

We invite you to share your recent findings through this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Olivier Sparagano
Dr. Nathalie Sleeckx
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• integrated pest management
• laying hens
• monitoring
• prevention
• pest control