Management factors, including the provision of perches, have been explored as to their ability to improve the health and welfare of domestic fowl. Exercise through perching has been suggested as a way to reduce the impact of leg problems in broiler chickens. The objective of this experiment was to investigate the effects of density (10, 15, and 20 birds\/m2) and perch design on the frequency of perch utilization. Four perch treatments were used in the experiment: control (no perches), horizontal (three horizontal perches), angled (three 10o angled perches), or mixed angle (one horizontal, one 10o angled, and one 20o angled perch). Perching frequency was significantly higher when birds were raised at stocking densities of 15 or 20 birds\/m2 compared to 10 birds\/m2. The birds used the horizontal perches the most, followed by 10o angled and mixed angle perch treatments. In general, perches closest to the hallway or outside of the house were used more than perches in the middle of the pen. It seems that broilers may be too heavy and inactive to use perches to a degree that it will benefit them, particularly in regards to leg problems. The higher use of perches at high densities suggests that social factors, such as social facilitation also have an effect on perch use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Management factors, including the provision of perches, have been explored as to their ability to improve the health and welfare of domestic fowl. Exercise through perching has been suggested as a way to reduce the impact of leg problems in broiler chickens. The objective of this experiment was to investigate the effects of density (10, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[928],"tags":[8882,9297,2935,24608,8548,16845,19644,8916,20007,14804,111,13370,9053,48,16262,12671,20911,26223,52,6053,20757,27281],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-welfare","tag-al","tag-are-perches-used-for-broilers","tag-behaviourbroilerbroiler-chickenbroilerschickenchickensdensitydomestic-fowlexercisehealthleg-problemsmanagementperchperchingsocial-facilitationstocking-densityutilizationwelfare","tag-broiler-density","tag-broilers-perching","tag-close","tag-dd","tag-effects-of-density-on-perching-behavior-of-broiler-chickens","tag-gh","tag-hal","tag-health","tag-ken","tag-leg","tag-management","tag-pl","tag-provis","tag-t","tag-the-effects","tag-treatment","tag-use","tag-vision","tag-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}