Ethical issues in poultry production - Datasets from a German consumer survey

The killing of day-old chicks is controversially discussed in poultry keeping, science, politics, and society. The present survey data contributes to understand consumers´ attitudes towards ethical issues in chicken production, especially the killing practice and dual purpose chickens as alternative to avoid such killing. Information on the various topics is provided: Consumer purchase pattern of eggs and chicken meat, perception of animal welfare and protection issues, knowledge and perception of killing day-old chicks, attitudes towards dual purpose chickens as an alternative to killing day-old chicks, and socio-demographic data. The data set contains standardized responds of 1000 telephone interviews. These interviews were conducted with German consumers in spring 2016. The survey data were in part analysed with cluster analysis to categorize consumers according to their purchasing criteria for dual chicken products, and assessing which socio-economic variables best described each of the consumer categories. The survey raw data, a file with the questionnaire and the codes, the analysed data, and additional files for understanding the cluster analysis are hosted in the public repository Open Research Data https://www.doi.org/10.4228/ZALF.DK.106.