Journal article
Close human presence reduces avoidance behaviour in commercial caged laying hens to an approaching human
LE Edwards, GJ Coleman, PH Hemsworth
Animal Production Science | CSIRO PUBLISHING | Published : 2013
DOI: 10.1071/AN12342
Abstract
The quality of human contact that hens are exposed to will determine the degree of fear of humans that they experience. This has consequences for the welfare of commercial laying hens, as hens that are afraid of humans will be regularly exposed to a fear-provoking stressor. Hens can be habituated to human presence using positive or neutral human-animal interactions, although the specific human behaviours that are considered positive or neutral by the hens are still being determined. This experiment investigated whether the proximity or duration of visual contact with a human affected fear of humans in commercial caged laying hens (n = 216). Commercial laying hens were exposed to daily visual..
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Funding Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Australian Poultry Cooperative Research Centre for financial support, the staff and students at the Animal Welfare Science Centre for assistance with data collection and analysis, and Kinross Farm for participating in this research.