The present experiment investigated the substrate preferences of laying hens, with particular respect to dustbathing and foraging behaviour, in order to guide decisions concerning which resources should be provided in laying hen housing systems to best enable the expression of these behaviours. The consumer demand approach was used to study the strength of preference. Individually-tested …
Producers commonly feed commercial leghorns based on flock average feed intake to control egg size and nutrient intake. However, results …
California caged-layer poultry producers were surveyed regarding current pest management practises for insects, mites, weeds, pathogens, rodents, and other vertebrate …
1. Management practices, stocking rate and flock size may affect laying hen welfare but there have been few replicated studies in commercial non-cage systems that investigate this. This study used a broad range of physical and physiological indicators to assess the welfare of hens in 36 commercial flocks. 2. Six laying period treatments were examined …
Although the transition from cage housing to alternative systems commenced more than 20 yr ago, there is still an ongoing …
Plumage condition, use of outdoor run, mortality and productivity were recorded in 18 Danish commercial organic egg-producing flocks consisting of 1,200-5,000 hens each. Between 7 and 38% of the hens in a flock used the outdoor run, with a mean of 18%. In most flocks the majority of the hens outside stayed close to the …
1. A leg band containing a transponder was fitted to 80 birds in a perchery containing 1000 birds. 2. The transponder emitted a unique identification number when a bird walked on one of 8 flat antennae on the floor. The recording apparatus was used to measure the amount of time that each of the tagged …
Many studies have shown how laying aviaries can improve hens’ welfare, but little work has been done on the adaptation …
Abstract 1. ISA Brown laying hens (3000) were housed in a perchery in 10 pens, each with 300 birds. The …
1. Flocks of medium hybrid laying hens were housed in a modified deep litter system; the house was divided into 2, 3 and 4 pens in three successive years. Flock size was 300 or 370 and stocking density varied from 3.4 to 10.7 birds/m2. Higher densities used were above those recommended by the Ministry of …
Laying Hens were kept in an aviary system on a practical scale under Swedish conditions during five entire production cycles. …
1. The objective of the present study was to examine the behaviour of laying hens in single-tiered aviaries with and …
The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate assocations between vent pecking (VP) and management in laying hens in alternative systems and to compare the results with those from the feather pecking (FP) analysis using data collection in the same study [Vet. Rec. 147 (2000) 233]. The data were derived from a postal questionnaire …
Measurements of the heterophil:lymphocyte (H/L) ratio (invasive technique) and corticosterone in yolk and albumen (noninvasive techniques) were used to measure stress in 3 commercial laying strains, Lohmann White (LW), H&N White (HN), Lohmann Brown (LB), and a noncommercial cross (CR) between Rhode Island Red (male) and Barred Plymouth Rock (female), kept in conventional cages or …
1. Over twelve 28-d laying periods (almost one year), 272 laying hens of the Lohmann Silver strain, individually tagged with transponders, were monitored on their ranging behaviour and laying performance in an aviary system with an adjacent winter garden. 2. From laying periods 1 to 12, the daily frequency of passages between the barn and …
Tests assessing the fear of humans by measuring avoidance or approach reactions of the test animals towards humans can be useful tools in welfare assessment schemes. In this study, we wanted to compare tests assessing the reactions of laying hens towards humans in the home environment to a test performed in a novel environment. As …