Comparing the behavioural organization of head pecking, severe feather pecking, and gentle feather pecking in domestic turkeys

• Published in: Applied animal behaviour science 2018-07, Vol.204, p.66-71
• Main Authors: Dalton, Hillary A., Wood, Benjamin J., Widowski, Tina M., Guerin, Michele T., Torrey, Stephanie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analytical methods; Animal behavior; Animal care; feather pecking; Feeding behavior; foraging; Foraging behavior; Gentle feather pecking; head; Head pecking; Injurious pecking; males; Organizational aspects; Pattern analysis; pecking; Quantitative analysis; Severe feather pecking; Sexual behavior; T-patterns; Turkeys; Wildfowl
• ISSN: 0168-1591; 1872-9045
• DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2018.05.005

•Differences in the behavioural organization of HP, SFP, and GFP in turkeys are unclear.•T-pattern and conventional analyses examined the organization of each pecking behaviour.•Turkeys engaged in HP were more active than turkeys performing SFP or GFP.•Within observations of SFP, GFP occurred more frequently than in observations of HP. Detection of behavioural temporal patterns (T-patterns) allows for insight into the organization of behaviours that is not apparent through quantitative analysis of the durations and frequencies of discrete behaviours. In this study, a T-pattern was defined as a reoccurring sequence of ≥2 behavioural event types22Behavioural event types: In this study, a behavioural event type was classified as each occurrence of a behavioural event and both the start and end of each occurrence of a behavioural state. linked by a non-random critical period of time and occurring more often than expected by chance. This study aimed to identify differences in the behavioural distribution and organization of two forms of injurious pecking, head pecking (HP) and severe feather pecking (SFP), and non-damaging gentle feather pecking (GFP) in domestic turkeys using two analytical methods T-pattern analysis and a conventional assessment of behavioural frequencies and durations. Video observations of pecking behaviour were obtained from focal samples of domestic male turkeys between 5 and 15 weeks of age. Each focal sampling observation recorded all behaviours shown by a single turkey 120 s (s) before and after the turkey performed HP, GFP, or SFP (241 s total observation length per pecking event). Pecking type had no effect on the number of T-patterns and the frequency of T-pattern occurrences. However, both T-pattern detection and the conventional analysis showed turkeys in observations containing HP tended to be more active with shorter lying durations (H = 7.36, df = 2, P = 0.025), less frequent standing (H = 5.61, df = 2, P = 0.061), and less structured T-patterns (total T-pattern durations: H = 5.996, df = 2, P = 0.050, mean durations: H = 5.34, df = 2, P = 0.068) than turkeys engaged in GFP or SFP. The analyses also showed that turkeys that performed SFP tended to show more frequent GFP than turkeys that performed HP (H = 5.79, df = 2, P = 0.055). However, discrepancies in organization of feeding and foraging behaviour between the two analytical methods highlighted the susceptibility of both methods to behavioural variation between individuals