Miss Gemma J Richards

Having worked at the University of Bristol for 19 years now, I have been involved with various research projects in the fields of both farm animal and companion animal welfare with poultry welfare being the main area of my research.

The main area of research I'm currently working on is a collaborative project with FLOX AI providing welfare assessments on UK broiler farms to assist in the development of a broiler welfare tool. I've also recently been involved in a project assessing handling methods for ducks at depopulation. This year I am excited to be working on a project entitled  'Mimicking Mother Hens on Farm: Feasibility of an Intermittent Lighting System for Improving Sustainability and Welfare in Layer Chicks'

Biography

I graduated from The University of Plymouth in 2003 with a BSc Psychology degree, including an honours project investigating social learning in goldfish. I then went on to The University of Exeter to do an MSc degree in Animal Behaviour Science, with sentinel behaviour in meerkats as the focus of my dissertation. In January 2005 I started work as a research technician at Bristol University in the department of Farm Animal Science working on a 3-year project investigating the welfare of laying hens. Since then, I've continued to work at The University of Bristol  on various other projects both in the field of farm animal and companion animal welfare. In December 2022 I obtained my Registered Scientist certification from the Science Council. I am very grateful to be part of such a world class research group, making a real contribution to animal welfare science.