Effect of Transportation on Maintenance, Behavior, and Performance in Turkey Poults during the Brooding Period

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Animal and poultry health Department, animal production and poultry division, Desert Research Center (DRC), Cairo, (11753) Egypt

2 Behavior and Management of Animal, Poultry and Aquatic Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44511, Egypt

Abstract

 Transporting turkey poults is one of the most stressful parts of transportation management. Although the impact of transportation stress on animal welfare is widely known, limited data is available about how transportation influences behavior, performance, and welfare. Consequently, to evaluate the transportation effects on Turkey's performance and behavior, turkey poults were classified into two groups according to two types of transport, the first group was 150 poults Grade marker one day -old chick flight from France to Egypt for 4.30 hours with short Journey transport and the second group was 150 poults Grade maker one day-old chick flight for 24-48 hours with long journey flight from Tunisia to Egypt. The current study indicated that the short-term transport showed a marked increase in some maintenance behavioral patterns such as kinetic behavior and comfort behavior compared with long journey transport. While growth performance as feed intake and total feed conversion ratio was mild increase in the long journey transport (1.65±0.005) in long journey than short journey (1.42±0.003) with mild increase in abnormal behavior as cannibalism (0.83±0.35) in long journey transport than short journey transport (0.500±0.35). In conclusion, transportation has a substantial effect on turkey poults' welfare, behavior, and growth performance.

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