Poultry Behaviour Flashcards
Chicken domestication driven by…
cockfighting
Laying strains selected for… Broiler strains selected for…
Laying = early onset of lay, egg production, egg quality (size, strength), food conversion efficiency
Broiler = food conversion efficiency, rapid growth, whitr:dark meat ratio, meat yield
Turkey breeding focused on…
Plumage characteristics (against dark plumage so no melanin from feather follicles), meat production
Panoramic, binocular vision of poultry
pano = 300
bino = 26
Chickens good at focusing on…
small objects in front of them
Colours birds are sensitive to
Blue and red (prefer a green background)
What negatively impacts eye development
Dim light and continuous illumination
Poultry can not move their ____ only their ____
eyes, head
Poultry can hear…
low frequency sounds, as low as 20Hz
Some calls of poultry
Warning, contact, mating, threat, submissive, laying
Food preferences based on…
visual cues and taste preferences
Poultry prefer what taste? Cannot taste what?
Prefer umami/salt
No receptors for sweet/spicy
Avoid bitter
Chicken olfaction
Important for finding food
Aversive to carnivore poop, blood from conspecifics
More comfortable in environment that smells like the environment they were in while in the egg
Two types of chicken housing, what they are used for
Floor systems: meat-type birds and breeding flocks
Cages: egg-laying hens
Cage free birds are…
In aviary, free run or free range
Laying hen, meat chicken, broiler breeder housing
Laying hen: cages, 3-10 birds, 300-600cm^2 per bird
Meat chicken sheds: broiler barns, 10,000-70,000 birds
Breeder sheds: broiler breeding barns, thousands on litter or wire, 1:8-15 male:female
Slide 9
A few ways we can enrich laying hen cages
Perch, scratchpads, next boxes, dust baths
Enrichment needs to be…
- novel
- destructible
- biologically relevant
What are aviary systems? The point?
Several horizontal levels, feed trough on floor and perch, nest boxes, nipple drinkers, increases hens per square meter
Make better use of space between floor and ceiling
Examples of floor types
Fine hexagonal mesh
Coarse rectangular mesh
Perforated sheet steel
Bird flooring preferences mostly have to do with…
Previous experience =, less to do with indication of suffering
What is high priority to hens
nest sites
Two kinds of abnormal behaviours in poultry
- Feather pecking: re-directed ground pecking, gentle or severe
- Injurious pecking: vent pecking or cannibalism (peck at dark follicle where feather used to be)
Why is pecking order more apparent in laying hen and breeder systems? How are they established
Social stratification usually is not established until after broiler market age
Established through pecking and threatening
Interrelationships in laying hens… How do you know who’s at the bottom
Social rank, aggression, feeding beh, egg production
Bald spot on back of head
What are hen subgroups
Form within large groups after hens have been together for months
Restrict themselves to an area
Formation of subgroups means…
Birds can recognize their own group members and overlapping of territories
Large groups of hens means more…
Mortality, production/beh problems (unstable social group)
Hierarchy in mixed sex groups
Males and females have their own pecking order
Cockerels establish it within 6-8 weeks
Pullets establish it within 8-10 weeks
Feeding behaviour
Choose to feed close to each other (social attraction)
Show socially facilitated feeding (peck more at feed with company than alone)
Hen head movement in housing systems
Maintain heads at regular pattern of spacing, avoid frontal aspect of other birds
Turn in defense to approaching birds
Hens can recognize…
Different breeds, but not individuals of a different breed
Recognition of individuals
occurs through visual cues of the head, comb is most important
What is the third-party effect in poultry
Fewer aggressive acts occur towards subordinates when in the presence of a more dominant flockmate
Selection for early onset of egg production in layers has led to…
Selection for rapid growth in broilers has led to…
More aggressive and socially dominant females before maturity
Decrease in active behaviours (foraging, locomotion)
Slide 22 pic*
ok
Sexual behaviours involve
Postures, vocalizations, noises, spreading of feathers
Why are high status females difficult to mate? Solution?
Requires her to take a submissive stance
Separate high-ranking females to mate them (become lower rank in new group)
When a mother-offspring bond is formed… Slide 24
Chicks learn to respond to maternal feeding call, distress call, hen’s purring sound
When do chicks imprint
Precocial, in the first few days
