Abstract
The aim of the study is to investigate whether housing laying hens in furnished cages in post-stress adaptation period causes any changes in behaviors or not. Due to the affects of animal welfare on production performance, the relationship between behavioral changes and egg production has also been studied. In the present study, 22 weeks old, 32 laying hens were used. The hens were subjected to transport. The transport procedure, including loading and unloading took 8 hours. Just after the transportation, birds were randomly divided into two groups as furnished and conventional cages; each consists of two subgroups with 8 hens. It was ensured that the hens in subgroups were unfamiliar with each other to induce social stress. On the top of each cage, a camera was fixed and continuous recording was done for 24 hours for 6 days. The behavior of animals was scored by time sampling method. Eating, drinking, resting, preening, wing flapping, tail-wagging, stretching, ground-scratching, gentle pecking, stereotyped and aggressive pecking behaviors were scored. In addition, the locations of the hens were also determined in furnished cages. Frequency of eating, drinking and ground-scratching behaviours significantly increased, but tail-wagging behaviour tended to increase in hens housed in furnished cages. On the other hand, resting, stretching and aggressive pecking behaviours significantly decreased in hens housed in furnished cages. In addition, the use of perch and nest rate in furnished cages significantly increased from the second day. In the conclusion, cage furnishing improves some comfort behaviour such as ground-scratching and tail wagging and decreasing aggressive pecking in laying hens. Therefore, it would be beneficial to keep stress exposed hens in furnished cages in the post-stress adaptation period.
Highlights
Protection of poultry from stressors is crucial to improve production performance and animal welfare
Frequency of eating and drinking behaviors increased in hens housed in furnished cages compared to the hens housed in conventional cages (P = 0.001, Z = -7.521, and P = 0.013, Z = -2.488, respectively, Table 1)
Aggressive pecking was higher in hens housed conventional cages, compared to furnished cages (P= 0.019, Z= -2.346,)
Summary
Protection of poultry from stressors is crucial to improve production performance and animal welfare. Many precautions are taken to reduce the stressors, it is not possible tocompletely eliminate stress factors in intensive poultry production. Laying hens are affected by various stressors such as fear, heat, cold, poor ventilation, physiologic or nutritional stress (Harvey et al, 1983; Mirfendereski et al, 2015; Scanes, 2016). They are exposed to stressors more often due to their longer lifespan. When unfamiliar chicken put together in the same cage social stress occur due to the establishment of a new pecking order.
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