Abstract
Environmental enrichment may provide a solution to moderate several welfare problems
in broiler production. Broilers are often housed in closed houses, with a minimum of resources
for performing motivated behaviours. By providing more resources, the birds may
be stimulated to become more active, and to exercise a wider range of behaviours.
Two experiments (replicates) were conducted, one in summer- and one in wintertime. In
each experiment, fast growing broilers (Cobb 500) were either placed in standard pens
(n=4), in pens with natural light (n=4), or in pens equipped with outdoor runs (n=4). In
each pen, approximately 390 birds were placed. With natural light, light intensity was
highly variable, and was on average 9 lux. The outdoor runs were covered with a roof,
and were open 24 hours from 3 weeks of age. From 2 weeks of age, behaviour of the
birds was observed weekly by scan sampling. The birds were gait-scored one week before
slaughter age (42 days). Data were subjected to analysis of variance.
Outdoor runs were most often used in summertime (summer vs. winter: 13 and 2%,
respectively). With an outdoor run, the percentage of birds performing resting behaviour
inside the house increased with 3-4% (P
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings 38th ISAE-congress<Helsinki, Finland, 3-7 August 2004 |
| Place of Publication | Helsinki, Finland |
| Pages | 255-255 |
| Publication status | Published - 2004 |