September 21, 2005 Source: University of Toronto:
http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin6/050921-1647.asp A new pecking order: Cooped-up chicks grow to pick on pals Avian violence results in overall lower egg production, higher food consumption, earlier deaths Sep 21/05 by Sonnet L’Abbé (about) (email) Being deprived of early opportunities to discover one’s surroundings can lead to underdeveloped coping skills and twice as much bullying later in life, says a new U of T study on animal behaviour. Psychology professors Jerry Hogan and Adam Chow examined Burmese red junglefowl and the relationship of feather pecking – where birds peck out and sometimes eat the feathers of other birds – to chicks’ early opportunities to explore their environment. The research, published in the September issue of Applied Animal Science Behaviour, suggests access to stimulating environments at a young age is strongly related to the later ability to avoid using peers as “pecking bags.” "Feather pecking is a serious social and economic problem in the poultry industry,” Hogan says. Socially and ethically, pecking is painful and leads to bleeding, serious lesions and cannibalism. Economically, avian violence results in overall lower egg production, higher food consumption and earlier deaths. Most fowl in commercial farm flocks exhibit feather pecking. It is generally accepted that this pathological behaviour is related to the stress of confined living conditions. “Management of the chicks’ early weeks might help the birds be happier throughout their lives, even if those lives are short,” Hogan says. Over six weeks, Hogan and Chow raised 40 chicks: half were confined solely to their pens and half were allowed to discover a space that offered sand, string, bottle caps and sticks to peck at. The cooped-up chicks turned on their cage mates for stimulation, eventually showing twice as much feather-pecking behaviour as their environmentally enriched peers. Hogan admits he is not interested so much in understanding chickens as he is in understanding the principles of behaviour and says these findings could shed light on how humans cope with the stress of urban overpopulation. “Coping skills are a reflection of how the nervous system is organized. Early experience with a varied, stimulating environment affects how the nervous system develops and likely leads to better adjusted animals,” he says. “So yes, kids exposed to a wide variety of things are probably less likely to show bad behaviour when they grow up.” This study was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Contact: Professor Jerry Hogan, Department of Psychology, 416-978-7820,; e-mail:shogan@psych.utoronto.ca
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