The agriculture industry offers exciting and varied careers in the UK and abroad providing unique opportunities for young people to work in a technically advanced and innovative environment, producing one of the country’s most important products – food. Businesses within the industry range from small family farms through to large integrated organisations working across the food supply chain. The key role for a poultry worker is to raise the animals with optimal welfare and consideration for their needs throughout the different stages of their life. This is practical work involving a combination of technology and manual labour. Being a poultry worker requires compassion, self-motivation and the ability to work both independently and as a team player. Poultry workers will be responsible for their own work, but will have close supervision. As animal welfare is a priority on farm, key to being a good poultry worker is understanding your limits and knowing when to ask for help. A poultry worker is responsible for supporting the bird development process, maintaining bird accommodation and preparing and monitoring the livestock production environment whether this is on a farm or in a hatchery. This will include ensuring they are looked after to meet health and welfare requirements as well as performance targets while maintaining effective biosecurity at site. This standard follows a ‘core and options’ approach. The core covers the generic requirements for looking after birds competently and the sector options provide more specific needs for different stages of the process, rearing, breeding and egg laying, hatchery and grow out farms. These are permanent stages in the process and not seasonal roles. To complete the standard a Poultry Worker should complete the core elements and one option.

One option will be taken in addition to the core knowledge, skills and behaviours.