Abstract
Turkey poults are susceptible to early mortality and poor initial feeding behavior for reasons that are not well-understood. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the development of turkey poult feeding behavior and early mortality, with a focus on the effect of biological age and diet. We hypothesized that increasing biological age would increase mortality, and that poults that had earlier feeding behavior would have decreased mortality. Nine hundred and sixty female turkey poults were randomly assigned to 24 pens (40 poults per pen). The study was conducted as a completely randomized block design with a factorial arrangement of two ages (early and standard hatch) and three diets (control, modified A, and modified Ca/P B, differing primarily in the Ca/P ratio and percent fines). The behavior during the first 24 h after placement of newly placed poults was examined. Growth performance and mortality throughout the first week of life was also measured to determine if early behavior had any impact on these variables over time. Behavior during the first 24 h was similar between the age treatments; both spent ~2.5% of the time drinking, 7% of the time feeding, 12% of the time active and 80% of the time inactive/resting. There was no effect of diet or age treatment on latency to feed or drink. Growth variables were not affected by biological age. However, there was a significant diet and biological age effect on bodyweight and mortality. Standard hatch poults fed a control diet were lighter than other poults at 7 d, while standard hatch poults fed the diet with the lowest Ca:P had the highest mortality. For all treatments, early mortality was primarily due to yolk sac infection, although >1% of placed poults died due to starvation. Findings of the present study indicate that, regardless of biological age or diet, poults established feeding behavior within the first 24 h and the majority of early poult mortality under these experimental conditions was due to factors other than starvation.
Highlights
Many turkey poults may experience poor starting performance for reasons that are not well-understood
The objective of this study was to examine the relationships among biological age, diet, the development of poult feeding behavior and early mortality
There were no differences among biological age groups or dietary treatments in behavior over the first 24 h after placement, time played a significant role for all measured behavior
Summary
Many turkey poults may experience poor starting performance for reasons that are not well-understood. Mortality and Behavior of Turkey Poults of birds are compromised and die or are culled from the flock when they fall onto their backs or sides and cannot right themselves, a condition commonly referred to as “flips” [2, 5]. These exogenous factors include coloring the diet [6], changing the feed form [7], attracting the birds with lights [8], or sounds [5] or using a trainer bird [9] These methods attracted birds to the feeder, they generally did not have any effect on reducing mortality. Higher proportions of fine particles in the diet may take longer for birds to consume [14], but whether proportion of fines impacts the development of feeding is unknown
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