Abstract
The present study was designed to investigate the effects of additional human contact on the human- animal relationship in broilers and on the birds’ productivity. A total of 1558 broiler one-day-old chicks were distributed into 12 equally sized pens at two different stocking densities (SD); calculated on estimated weight at slaughter (4 pens with 32 kg/m2 and 8 pens with 16 kg/m2 ). Six groups (2 high and 4 low SD) received Additional Human Contact (AHC),which consisted of 30 min sessions with visual human contact three days/week.. The remaining 6 groups received as little human contact as possible and served as controls. A Touch Test was used to assess the human-broiler relationship and the production parameters measured were: growth rate, mortality, feed consumption and feed conversion. The AHC-treatment had a positive effect on the quality of the HAR but failed to affect any production parameter.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 161-167 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section A - Animal Science |
| Volume | 66 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 15 Feb 2017 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Issue cover date: 2016Keywords
- Touch test
- feed conversion
- growth rate
- mortality
- human-broiler relationship
- welfare
Access to Document
- Full-text PDF (accepted author manuscript)
This is the author accepted manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Taylor & Francis at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09064702.2017.1286379. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.