Injurious Pecking Behavior of Pekin Ducks on Commercial Farms: Characteristics, Development and Duck Welfare

Yiru Dong, Purdue University

Abstract

Injurious pecking is one of the major welfare concerns for poultry and other captive birds. Injurious pecking behavior can result in welfare problems including feather and skin damage, pain, substantial heat loss because of feather loss, and even death of the recipient bird. Injurious pecking can also cause economic losses because of reduced production efficiency, increased mortality and reduced feed conversion ratio. Injurious pecking behavior includes feather pecking, feather picking, cannibalism and aggressive pecking. Feather pecking, when a bird uses its beak or bill to peck at the feathers of another bird, can be categorized as either gentle feather pecking (repeated and light pecks) or severe feather pecking (singular and hard pecks). Feather picking is described as a selfdamaging behavior that occurs in psittacine species such as parrots and also in ducks. Cannibalism is classified as either tissue pecking (persistently forceful pecks directed at exposed skin) or vent pecking (pecks directed at the top of cloaca or below the cloaca). Unlike feather pecking, feather picking and cannibalism, which are not associated with aggression, aggressive pecking establishes and maintains the dominance hierarchy. Limited studies have examined injurious pecking of Pekin ducks, but results from previous research examining duck picking behavior and feather quality suggested that ducks pick mostly at themselves and that the development of picking is related to feather growth and worsens with age. Scant information is available regarding the prevalence of injurious pecking behavior and characteristics of the behavior. To address some of the gaps in the knowledge regarding injurious pecking behavior of ducks, this study examined 1) age-related changes in frequencies and durations of preening behavior and injurious pecking behavior of Pekin ducks, including self-picking and feather pecking; 2) the body locations most frequently affected, and whether feather removal and feather eating occurred concurrently with injurious pecking; 3) the prevalence of injurious pecking behavior; and 4) agerelated changes in duck welfare that may be associated with injurious pecking. Information about preening behavior was recorded because injurious pecking and preening behavior may have similar age-related patterns, as previous studies have suggested that increased levels of preening behavior are related to feather growth. Data were collected on 5 commercial duck flocks on 5 farms. Welfare data were collected from all 5 flocks and behavior data were collected from 2 of the 5 flocks. For the two flocks, duck behavior was video-recorded over two consecutive days at 20-22d (Period 1), 27-29 d (Period 2), and 34-36 d (Period 3). Scan sampling and focal animal sampling were used to analyze the video recordings and determine the frequencies and durations of injurious pecking behavior (gentle feather pecking, severe feather pecking, self-picking and aggressive pecking). For scan sampling, the percentage of ducks performing injurious pecking behavior were recorded every 30 min from 0900h to 1500h. For both scan and focal animal sampling, the viewing area of each camera installed in the barn was divided into eight equal squares (observation areas), of which four were randomly selected for analysis. For focal animal sampling, one duck was randomly selected from each observation area and observed for 30 min from 0945h to 1015h and 1345h to 1415h ((n=8 ducks per camera (4 ducks in the morning and 4 ducks in the afternoon) and n=24 ducks per barn)) to determine the duration and frequency of injurious pecking behavior and preening behavior.

Degree

M.Sc.

Advisors

Erasmus, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Animal sciences|Behavioral psychology|Behavioral Sciences|Ecology|Psychology

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