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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]
Fitting pin-less blinders to laying hens leads to reduced activity, increased resting, adjustment problems in feeding, stereotypic head shaking and protracted displacement neck preening for a month after fitting. [3] In another study on laying hens, mortality was greater among hens wearing blinders compared to hens that had been beak-trimmed. [5]
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.
Broody hens can stay on their eggs for a full week, only leaving maybe once a day to eat, drink, and go to the bathroom. The real issue comes when their owner has to decide if they want her to ...
Vent pecking, like feather pecking, is a gateway behaviour to cannibalism due to its cannibalistic features of hostility towards another individual that involves the aggressive tearing and damaging of the skin and tissue. Vent cannibalism was found to be the most common type of cannibalism causing death in autopsy results of laying hens. [13 ...
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 ...
More than 40% of the nation's roughly 300 million egg-laying hens are raised in cage-free facilities, but roughly 60% of "bird flu" cases recently detected involved cage-free farms.
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.