Abstract
Simple SummaryEnvironmental complexity can improve chicken welfare. However, the outcome of such environmental changes will depend on the resources provided. We provided either various physical items that posed no biosecurity risk and were inexpensive (such as balls, chains, a perch and rope) to alter behavioral time budgets and interactions with the environment or provided additional visual contact with humans (10 min daily) with the aim to reduce fearfulness. Additional human contact reduced fear of humans at 35 days of age, but did not affect general fearfulness. Increased environmental complexity via the provision of physical items reduced some indicators of fear at 21 days, but not at 35 days of age. A woodblock and perch were the most favored physical items, but chickens preferred to sit underneath the perch rather than on top. When pecking items were not provided, chickens redirected their pecking to the wood shaving litter. Overall, there was little evidence that our physical items improved the chickens’ behavioral time budget, fear, physiological stress or production. The benefits of additional visual contact with humans should be investigated on larger groups to ensure that such effects are practical and effective to reduce fear of humans on farm. Increased environmental complexity can improve animal welfare, depending on the resources provided and use by the animal. We provided chickens either with physical items that posed no biosecurity risk and were inexpensive (balls, chains, perches and rope) (P; n = 36) or additional visual human contact (10 min daily) (HC; n = 36) compared to farm-like standard control groups (C; n = 36) with 3 pens per treatment. Additional human contact reduced fear of humans at 35 days of age, but not general fearfulness. P birds required more inductions to induce tonic immobility compared to HC and C birds at 21 days of age. However, other indicators of fear (open field test and plasma corticosterone concentration) did not significantly differ. P birds favored the woodblock for resting, and the perch but preferred to sit underneath the perch rather than on top. When pecking items were not provided, C and HC chickens redirected their pecking behavior toward the litter. Overall, there was little evidence that our physical items improved the chickens’ behavioral time budget, fear, physiological stress or production. Additional human contact should be investigated in large scale experiments to ensure its effectiveness to reduce fear of humans on farm.
Highlights
Environmental enrichment has the potential to improve captive animal welfare [1,2,3,4]
Rats that were provided with a new enrichment item each week had poorer welfare than rats that were provided with all of the items at the same time, evident by improved body and thymus weights, a reduction in aggression and other behavioral changes associated with positive affect such as increased rest and interaction with the environment [18]
An order effect was observed when the novel enrichments were provided, suggesting that some enrichments were more valued than others and the improvements to welfare from the environmental complexity group may have been associated with one enrichments alone rather than due to the complexity of the environment
Summary
Environmental enrichment has the potential to improve captive animal welfare [1,2,3,4]. Evidence to support the feeling of reward associated with knowledge acquisition is demonstrated by contra-freeloading (i.e., chickens will work (forage) for food even when it is freely available) [15,16] Supporting this theory, is recent research that has shown that environmental complexity provided to meat chickens resulted in improvements to positive affect [17]. Rats that were provided with a new enrichment item each week (i.e., novelty) had poorer welfare than rats that were provided with all of the items at the same time (i.e., environmental complexity), evident by improved body and thymus weights, a reduction in aggression and other behavioral changes associated with positive affect such as increased rest and interaction with the environment [18]. Monitoring interactions with specific items provided to animals in complex environments may provide insight into what is truly enriching and valued
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