For the impacts of impaired mobility on commercial
duck welfare and production to be better understood,
the methodologies used to evaluate walking issues in
research and production settings must be critically assessed.
Across poultry species, gait score systems are
the most commonly used tools for evaluating the walking
abilities of birds raised for meat (Mench, 2004).
For the results of gait score analyses to be meaningful,
and to allow for comparisons to be made across assessments
or studies, gait score definitions should correspond
to measurable differences in gait structure and be