BREEDING ▶▶▶
Broiler breeders prefer wooden nests
BY FABIAN BROCKÖTTER I
n an existing broiler breeder house, the equipment and the laying nests are what you have to work with. Only in a nightmare scenario would you go to the length of ripping equipment out and investing in new kit, despite the fi- nancial implications. However, when building a new farm or adding houses, you can go back to the basics, learn from past experience and, above all, take the opportunity to implement the latest technology and insights. Interesting new insights have come from researcher Anne van den Oever, PhD student at the Dutch Wageningen University and researcher at the Vencomatic Group. In close cooperation with the Swiss Uni- versity of Bern, she looked into the finer points of broiler breeder behaviour. “A lot of work has been done in the past on the bird behaviour of layers, but questions remained on the interaction between breeders and the house design. Many of these have to do with nest preference. We know that in some houses there is a problem with gregarious nesting, leading to floor eggs, full egg belts and wounded birds. Even though all the nests are the same, the birds crawl together due to genetic factors. From that, one thing led to another and we designed a new trial focusing on nesting preferences.”
Ideal conditions The idea of Van Den Oever’s research was to find out what type of laying nest would meet all criteria. Not so much the standards of the nest designer but the far more important criteria of the birds. “We took our research experience into account along with Vencomatic’s decades-long customer feedback on the main issues in actual, day-to-day farming,” says Anne. She continues: “When attempting to optimise housing conditions for broiler breeders kept on commercial farms, the main question is: what does the hen prefer? Knowing that providing nests with a preferred design has benefits for the hens as well as for the producer. Plus that the welfare of the hens will likely be improved by meeting their needs which could also increase the number of eggs laid in the nests, as opposed to other locations.” According to Van den Oever the attractiveness of nests may involve factors such as seclusion, material and microclimate. “From experi- ence we know that less than ideal nests not only lead to floor eggs, but also relatively more visits to the nest per egg laid
Number of eggs, fertility and hatchability. As a broiler breeder operation there are many parameters to keep on top of. One extra headache is the number of floor eggs, as they involve extra labour. Optimum rearing, keeping the birds active and a raised slatted area can help prevent floor eggs but recent research into nesting behaviour showed that the type of nest is a deciding factor.
and shorter nesting times. A natural conclusion would be that the hens don’t feel happy on the nest.” To find out more about the hens’ preferences they were giv- en a free choice of nest. “In this study, four nest box designs were offered in a relative preference test. We used a plastic control nest, a plastic nest with a partition to divide the nest into two areas offering some seclusion, a plastic nest with a ventilator underneath to create air flow inside the nest to mimic a drafty nest, and a wooden nest in which every con- tact surface the hen encounters is made of wood. Six groups of 100 hens and nine roosters had access to these four nests in a randomised location between the ages of 20 to 34 weeks,” Van den Oever explains. The hens were constantly monitored with cameras inside the nests during the age periods of 24–25 weeks and 26–27 weeks. These images were analysed for behaviour, including general activity, nest inspections, nest visits and social interaction.
In cooperation with the Swiss University of Bern, the first small scale tests were carried out to discover the finer points of nest preference.
▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 4, 2021
31
PHOTO: ANNE VAN DEN OEVER
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