Poultry Behavior and Welfare

• Poultry welfare includes the physical, mental, and behavioral well-being of domesticated birds.
• Behavior is how animals respond to stimuli from various sources.
• Stimuli can come from other birds, the environment, people, or events in the poultry's surroundings.

General Poultry Behavior

• Poultry respond to environmental stimuli.
• Behaviors can be instinctive or learned.
• Poultry are wary, shy, and have limited ability, but can adapt to different circumstances over time.
• Poultry have excellent vision and hearing, but poorly developed other senses.
• In the wild, they live on jungle floors in thick forests.
• Poultry use the ground for activities such as foraging, dust bathing, and nesting.
• At night, they perch in trees.
• Inability to perform innate behaviors results in frustration.

Factors Governing Poultry Behavior

• Poultry behavior is influenced by genetics, experience, age, and environment
• Genetics determine docility in some strains, which responds to selection pressure.
• Chickens instinctively know how to eat but must learn what, where, and how to find food
• Certain behaviors are expressed at appropriate ages, like the peck order and reproduction
• The Peck order starts developing at 1-2 weeks, and is fully established by 6-8 weeks.
• Sexual maturity occurs at 18-22 weeks.
• High light increases activity in young chicks, encouraging them to seek food and water.
• Older birds can develop cannibalistic behaviors.

Social Behavior

• Fowls maintain personal space by communication via postural changes, vision, or vocalization.
• Signals include head position and the angle of the head and body.
• Contact is maintained visually at intermediate distances and vocally at longer distances or out of sight.
• The wild male establishes a territory with his harem and subordinates adopt a subordinate relationship.

Breeding Behavior

• Hens breed at specific times of the year, influenced by daylight duration (photoperiod).
• Chicks form strong bonds with their mother through imprinting.
• Brooding involves the mother providing warmth and care until weaning.
• Weaning occurs at about 10 to 12 weeks.
• Hens are secretive about nesting sites and are seasonal breeders.
• Males escort females to and from the nest.
• Chickens rapidly imprint on the hen after hatching.
• The need for brooding diminishes as chicks grow.

Learning

• Learning occurs through observation, imprinting, and habituation
• Copying others is a key part of the learning process
• Observing another bird pecking at something leads others to copy, learning where to eat and find food and water.
• Fowls are adaptable and become conditioned, and are good at visually discriminating tasks, focusing on the task without getting sidetracked.
• This limited flexibility helps them adapt to intensive housing easily, unlike species that generalize.
• Individual appearance is recognized by the shape of the comb, wattles, and head.
• Major changes cause failure to recognize flock mates, but they forget each other quickly.
• Flocks broken up forget each other in 3 to 4 weeks.

Communication

• Communication occurs through vocalization, postural signals, and visual cues
• Commonly used sounds are food calls, predator alarms, pre- and post-laying calls, and rooster crowing
• Chicken distress calls draw attention from the broody hen, resulting in chickens gathering close.
• Communication involves displays and posture changes like head/tail position or feather display.
• Displays are important in mating.
• Crowing is influenced by dawn, warning males, testosterone levels, attracting hens, and enjoyment.
• Crowing is a competitive and territorial behavior affecting breeding condition

Pecking and Peck Order

• Pecking is species-specific for fowls and beak trimming alters pecking.
• Pecking helps birds to escape from the shell, feed, drink, and maintain personal space.
• Its main purpose is eating via head and neck movements.
• Beak trimming changes the relationship between the top and bottom beak, affecting their ability to peck for food and liquid on flat surfaces. Food and water troughs must be adequate.

Pecking Habits and Flock Structure

• Pecking establishes a hierarchical ranking structure within flocks of dominant and subordinate individuals.
• The organization is established separately for males and females, starting at an early age and established by 10-16 weeks.
• Managers must consider the social organization of the flock to minimize disturbance.
• New hen groups should form before production starts, and males should run together before breeding.
• Placing a male with females can reduce pecking, which results in fertile eggs.

Caged vs Pen Poultry Breeding

• Cage breeding limits space and social interaction but have higher egg productivity and waste less feed.
• It creates risks of leg issues and stress but provides easier manure management and higher initial costs.
• Pen breeding provides move space, leads to better health and welfare, and lower initial cost.
• Pen breeding can produce more feed wastage with labor intensive manure management, and a higher risk of spreading disease.

Roosting and Perching

• Roosting and perching are protective behaviors against predators.
• Providing perches reduces floor eggs and trains layers for nest use.
• Perches escape spaces, preventing harassment and stress among pen-mates.
• Commercial stock may not use commercial use because their urge has been weakened and can lead to floor eggs.

Preening

• Preening is to maintain feather condition to maintain water condition
• These include dust bathing, oiling, and preening with the beak or foot.
• Dust bathing is for hens for external parasites and feathers alignment.

Drinking

• Chickens are initially attracted to water because of its physical aspect.
• Drinkers are adjusted by depth and height to minimize water spillage.
• The recommended depth is up to 1 cm.
• Trough lips should be at the level of the bird's wattles.

Eating

• Chickens naturally peck and place paper on the floor with sprinkled food for the first 24 hours.
• Caged hens manipulate food, pulling or flicking it out of the trough which results in wastage.
• Food intake is determined by continuous lighting and uniform light.

Reproduction, Courtship, and Broodiness

• Males reach sexual maturity at 16 weeks with mating occurring in the afternoon, and females begin mating at 18 weeks.
• Dominant males mate more frequently initially, but this advantage reduces over time.
• Frequent mating may result in later matings being less fertile.
• Courtship involves elaborate behaviors before copulation
• Broodiness is a hormone-driven behavior causing hens to stop laying for incubation which is controlled by genetics and hormonal changes, ensuring maternal care for chicks.
• Higher-ranked females crouch less.

Hatching Synchronization and Vocalization

• Hatching synchronization starts around day 17 of incubation with vocalizations.
• Vocalizations help synchronize the process with better synchronization being enhanced when eggs are in contact.
• Chicks pierce through shells using their beak.
• Hens accept new chicks for 3-5 days.
• During the hatching period, chickens start vocalizing as stimulus synchronized, and hen usually accepts foreign chickens.

Nesting Behavior

• Hens seek a place to lay, give pre-laying calls, show body postures, and examine the walls for nesting.
• A site is selected after inspecting numbers of sites
• Hens settle and forms nest through rotating the body, and stands during expulsion
• Hens examine the eggs after laying

Caged Nesting Behavior

• Cages can result with frustration and non- or mal-adaptive behavior.
• Eggs expelled can lead to cracked eggs as bird perform them while standing
• Birds in cages can be trained use floor-level platforms,
• Floor-nesting sites should be eliminated

Behavioral Problems

• Owner concerns: egg eating
• Impact on fellow individuals: aggressiveness, feather pecking, and cannibalism
• Hysteria and excessive gregariousness
• Pacing, vacuum nesting, and dust bathing are not directly harmful.

Fear

• Domestic poultry are exposed to human contact and display fearful behavior when humans approach.
• Fear can influence the welfare and productivity of birds, which is affected due to lack of familiarity with humans, or unpredictable human interactions.

Environmental Enrichment

• Decreases harmful behaviors, especially fear or feather pecking
• Enrichment strategies include string bunches, boxes, radio music, and lucerne hay.

Welfare Issues

• Meat Bird concerns: cardiovascular dysfunction, skeletal dysfunction, integument lesions, stocking density, ocular dysfunction, transport, and mortality.
• Layer concerns:, Osteoporosis & Bone Fractures, Feather Pecking & Cannibalism, Beak Trimming Stress, Stocking Density & Overcrowding, Cage Layer Fatigue, Foot & Claw, Lighting, Transport & Handling Stress, Molting & Starvation Stress, Issues (Ammonia Exposure), Mortality.
• Understanding stock behavior plays an important part in maximizing productivity.