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RELATION OF NATURAL BEHAVIOR AND YIELD IN CHICKENS
Kadriye Kursun
a, Mikail Baylan
a, Sibel Canogullari Dogan
baUniversity Of Cukurova, Agricultural Faculty, Department Of Animal Science, Adana/Turkey bNigde Omer Halisdemir University, Faculty Of Agricultural Sciences And Technologies, Department
Of Animal Production And Technol
Abstract:
People want healthy and natural nutrition, becoming conscious of nature conservation, work towards the protection of animal rights ensured the importance of animal welfare.
As is the case in the world, poultry farming in our country is mostly carried out under intensive conditions. Intensive poultry is carried out in the form of placing the largest number of animals in the smallest possible area under controlled environmental conditions. Standards applied to intensive rearing lead to stress, metabolic problems, physical and behavioral limitations in animals. The intensive breeding system is not suitable for demonstrating the natural behavior of animals. For these reasons, an alternative to the intensive breeding system has been developed, which can demonstrate the natural behavior of animals, and can perform their daily physical activities. Animal welfare; can be defined as a combination of objective and subjective features including health, illness, behavior, care and management practices. In addition to reproductive, nutrition and social behaviors exhibited by chickens, there are also behaviors that are found to be important for welfare. Such as nesting, tuning, searching for food (snatching), dust box, beak cleaning and feather care, flapping and stretching. In the intensive breeding system chickens can not exhibit their natural behavior and are under constant stress. Stress-induced animals become irritable and damage both themselves and other animals, leading to yield losses. Even so, deaths are often encountered in such cases. The breeders who do this work will be able to know the chicken behavior of the business owners, prepare the environments where the animals will live in welfare, and prevent possible loss of productivity.
Keywords: Poultry, Natural Behavior, Yields *