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Another study found that brown-egg laying hens are more likely to engage in feather pecking than white-egg laying hens. [1] The genetics of poultry will not guarantee a bird will engage in cannibalism, but the genes a bird possesses play a part in the degree of aggressiveness a bird could engage in feather pecking and increases their risk ...
The causes and development of vent pecking are multifarious. Risk factors that have been identified as increasing vent pecking include dim lights placed in nest boxes to encourage hens to use the boxes, the diet being changed more than three times during the egg laying period, the use of bell drinkers, and the hens beginning to lay earlier than 20 weeks of age. [2]
Removing eggs each day, out of the sight of the hens, helps avoid broodiness not only in domestic poultry but also in some wild species in captivity. This continued egg laying means more eggs are laid than would occur under natural conditions. [9] [10] Poultry farming in battery cages also helps to avoid broodiness. [11] [12] [13]
Early experience can influence severe feather pecking in later life. [13] [20] [21] Commercial egg-laying hens have often already begun feather pecking when they are transferred to the egg laying farm from the rearing farm at approximately 16–20 weeks of age, and plumage quality can then rapidly deteriorate until peak lay at approximately 25 weeks of age.
Mortalities, mainly due to cannibalism, can be up to 15% in egg laying flocks housed in aviaries, [2] straw yards, [3] and free-range systems. [4] Because egg laying strains of chickens can be kept in smaller group sizes in caged systems, cannibalism is reduced [5] [6] leading to a lowered trend in mortality as compared to non-cage systems ...
The theory gained steam on Facebook, TikTok and Twitter in recent weeks, with some users reporting that their hens stopped laying eggs and speculating that common chicken feed products were the cause.
PARIS/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Bird flu vaccines for laying hens are effective in practice, the Dutch government said on Tuesday, while confirming plans to vaccinate poultry against the virus that ...
Hens lay between 5 and 17 eggs per clutch and the eggs take between 23 and 24 days to hatch. There are between five and 10 young per brood. [ 15 ] The young are raised by the female and fledge in one to four weeks, are completely independent by the tenth to twelfth week, and reach sexual maturity by age one (Ammann, 1957).