Chicks change their pecking behaviour towards stationary and mobile food sources over the first 12 weeks of life: improvement and discontinuities

Abstract

Chicks (Gallus gallus domesticus) learn to peck soon after hatching and then peck in rapid bursts or bouts with intervals of non-pecking activity. The food sources may be static such as seeds and chick crumb, or mobile such as a mealworm. Here, changes with age in pecking toward chick crumb and a mealworm were measured.Chicks were reared in pairs and their pecking of crumb food was video recorded in their pair housed environment, from food presentation, every third day from day 8 (wk 2) to day 65 (wk 10). Peck rate at crumb food reached maximum levels at day 32 (wk 5), and then declined, fitting a quadratic model, with no sex, sex of cagemate, or box order effects. Within bouts the peck rate was higher and it increased to day 41 (wk 6) and then declined, and here males pecked faster than females. A change in dietary protein concentration from 22% to 18% at day 28 (wk 4) had no effect on subsequent peck rate.Pecking at and consumption of a mealworm in pair housed chicks were measured weekly from wks [5 to 12]. The latency to first worm peck and latency to swallow decreased to wk 8 and increased thereafter. The peck rate to first wormpeck and number of pecks to swallow increased to wk 8 and then declined paralleling the changes with crumb food. The increase in peck rate is coupled with an increase in efficiency in worm catching.The results are consistent with the view that the improvement in pecking ability and accuracy compliments change in nutritional requirement best served by an invertebrate food (IF) source requiring speed to achieve feeding success, especially with live prey. When this food source is no longer crucial these associated skill levels decline. An appreciation of the role of domestic fowl in controlling insect populations, at farm level, that are often vectors in disease spread is lacking.

Long-term access to live black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illucens) stimulates activity and reduces fearfulness of broilers, without affecting health

“…Providing live BSFL in tubes resulted in a large amount of time spent interacting with these tubes, and we observed that the interaction consisted mainly of pecking and scratching at the tubes (Supplementary Video S1). Pecking at the ground or at objects is a natural behaviour of chickens 40 , therefore performing this behaviour could satisfy a motivational need of broilers. Interacting with a plastic tube might be less natural for broilers, though broilers were clearly motivated to interact with the tubes as reflected by the large amount of time they spent performing foraging-related behaviour directed towards the tubes.…”

Ingestion of bedding material as a cause of acute copper sulfate poisoning in turkey poults

“…We hypothesize that the uneven accumulation of CuSO 4 in the bedding material from different parts of turkey shed could be a reason of difference in mortality. Another possible explanation could be the difference in foraging behavior between males and females (Murphy et al, 2014; Fernandes et al, 2015). In this paper, we have described cases of acute Cu toxicosis in turkeys after the ingestion of bedding contaminated with CuSO 4 .…”

Fly in the coop : How black soldier fly larvae improve broiler and pig welfare

“…Providing live BSFL in tubes resulted in a large amount of time spent interacting with these tubes, and we observed that the interaction consisted mainly of pecking and scratching at the tubes. Pecking at the ground or at objects is a natural behaviour of chickens (Murphy et al, 2014), therefore performing this behaviour could satisfy a motivational need of broilers. Interacting with a plastic tube might be less natural for broilers, though broilers were clearly motivated to interact with the tubes as reflected by the large amount of time they spent performing foraging-related behaviour directed towards the tubes.…”