6.1.1 – Broiler behavior on the free range

We have shown that, at the individual level, range use behavior is consistent over time in a large variety of environmental conditions and animal growth stages, meaning that it may be considered as a personality trait. In our experimental conditions, range-use increased with temperature, did not vary between sexes, while there were striking differences in the overall level of range-use among breeds. Thanks to High-throughput phenotyping by active RFID, we determined new measures to describe daily range use such as the time spent in the barn, the number of outdoor accesses, the number of zones visited in a day, the gregariousness, and the number of zone changes (a proxy of activity). They provide novel tools to help understand individual variations of range-use in free-range farming.

Papers

• Behavioral indicators of range use in four broiler strains; Bonnefous C. et al. – Applied Animal Behavior Science, Volume 260 – 2023
• High-throughput phenotyping to characterize range use behavior in broiler chickens; Collet J.M. et al. – Animal, Vol. 18, Issue 3 – 2024