Effects of age at first access to range area on pecking behaviour and plumage quality of free-range layer chickens

Abstract

Abstract. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of age on pecking behaviour and plumage quality of free-range laying hens during first access to range. Six hundred 16-week-old layer pullets obtained from a commercial company were housed in a experimental free-range house. The experimental house consisted of a slat-and-litter floor with range area and was divided into three similar pens. The pullets were randomly assigned to a control and two experimental groups according to age at first access to range area. The birds were allowed into the range area for the first time at 18, 20 and 22 weeks of age in the groups of treatment I, treatment II and control, respectively. Pecking behaviour and plumage quality of the birds were measured for 8-week intervals from 24 to 48 weeks of age. Total feather damage significantly increased with age in all groups (P < 0.040, P < 0.006, P < 0.001). Compared to the control group, birds allowed into the range area earlier had less feather damage. The feather score of the tail body region in all groups was significantly greater (more damage) than in the others (P < 0.001). There were no significant differences for the total pecking behaviour of the birds in the groups at 24, 32, 40 and 48 weeks of age. Incidents of gentle feather pecking in every period were more frequent, while aggressive pecking was less frequent (P < 0.026, P < 0.007, P < 0.001). It can be said that access to range area as early as possible at the beginning of the laying period may be useful to reduce the negative effect of feather pecking in free-range layer chickens.

Are practice recommendations for the prevention of feather pecking in laying hens in non-cage systems in line with the results of experimental and epidemiological studies?

“…Blokhuis and van der Haar 1992 (for l) Less feed phases Nicol 2008, Dixon et al 2006 Access to range Kjaer and Sørensen 2002Mahboub 2004, Petek 2015, Shimmura et al 2008…”

Effects of Housing Locations on Feather Damages of Laying Hens in a Free-Range Housing System

“…There is evidence flocks with many birds outside using all areas of the range have better feather cover (Chielo et al, 2016) and it would be beneficial to attract layers to litter or foraging area to reduce pecking behaviour. As reported previously, greatest range use can be achieved by letting the hens use the range as early as possible (Petek et al, 2015). Maintaining litter quality in litter area is the single most important enrichment you can provide to reduce the risk of feather pecking (Temple et al, 2017) and pecking stones or alfaalfa bales can be useful for attracting birds to the litter (Schreiter et al, 2019).…”

“…The causes of feather pecking and canibalism are very complicated and multi-factorial including drinker, genotype, insufficient or improperly placed feeder or drinking space, farm location, lighting program, housing system, lenght and type of perches (Lambton et al, 2010;Sherwin et al, 2010;Coton et al, 2019;Ellen et al,2019;Kaukonen and Valros 2019). Therefore, any approach to prevent or reduce prevaleness of feather pecking in commercial flocks should use a multifactorial approach to reduce this problem (Bestman and Wagenaar, 2003;Petek et al, 2015;Petterson et al, 2017).…”

“…Good housing design and layout of equipment are very important to reduce deletorius effects of injurious pecking in laying hens (Featherwell Booklet, 2013;Liebers et al, 2019). Pecking activity of a layers can be different in different location of a house depending on the condition as light intensity, feeding time, presence of something remarkable or competition (Petek et al 2015;Temple et al 2017) and this can be important to understand and solve the feather pecking problem of free range laying hens. Blokhuis and Arkes (1984) showed that birds housed on slatted floors showed more feather pecking and less ground pecking than birds housed on litter.…”

“…When birds housed on litter were transferred to slatted floors, feather pecking increased in these birds (Lambton et al, 2010). Dust bathing and litter scratching in litter and range area are the key factors that decrease the risk of injurious pecking (Defra Booklet, 2005) Feather pecking is very rarely seen out on the outdoor grazing area (Ellen et al, 2019) and it is clear that the risk of feather pecking in free-range layer chickens might be lower when an outdoor grazing area is provided as early as possible (Shimmura et al 2008;Petek et al 2015). Lambton et al(2010) showed that risk of vent pecking may be reduced by delaying the onset of lay and subsequently encouraging range use.…”