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Enriched colony housing (ECH) is a relatively new egg production system. As such, information is lacking on design parameters to ensure the well-being of the hens and optimal utilization of housing resources. A new system has been developed at Iowa State University that enables automated monitoring and quantification of feeding and nesting behaviors of individual hens in ECH. Ultra-high-frequency radio frequency identification (UHF RFID) is employed to track individual animals. The UHF RFID system consists of four components: antennas, tags, readers, and a data acquisition system. The antennas for monitoring feeding behavior are placed inside the two feed troughs and covered with plastic boards. Each feed trough has six antennas aligned in series covering the length of the feeder. Four additional antennas are placed inside the nest boxes to monitor the nesting behaviors. All 16 antennas are connected to five 4-channel readers, two per feed trough and one for the nest boxes, that are further connected to the hosting computer via Ethernet. Feed and water consumption and egg production are continuously monitored using load cells. This article describes the development and testing of the RFID system for monitoring feeding and nesting behaviors and provides sample data. The system has proven to be able to characterize benchmark feeding and nesting behaviors of individual hens in ECH, such as daily time spent at the feeder and in the nest box, daily frequency of visiting the feeder and the nest box, number of hens feeding and nesting simultaneously, and variability in these behaviors among individual hens. Future applications of the system include assessing the impact of resource allocation and management practices on feeding and nesting behaviors and on the well-being of the hens. This information will provide a scientific basis for optimal design and management of alternative hen housing systems.

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With different cage-free (CF) housing styles and management schemes, retailers have developed their own CF criteria. One highly debated aspect is if hens may be kept inside the system for part of the day—during the first few hours after lights-on. Research is lacking regarding the impacts of such a practice on hen welfare, incidence of eggs laid on the litter floor, litter condition, and air quality. This 14-mo field study was conducted to help assess such impacts. Hens (Dekalb White) in an aviary house (50,000-hen nominal capacity) were allowed to have full litter access (FLA) vs. part-time litter access (PLA) from 10:50 am to 9:00 pm, coupled with the absence or presence of experienced hens (1.5% of the population), hence a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement. The measured variables included a) incidence of floor eggs, b) percentage of birds remaining on litter floor at night, c) mortality, d) body weight (BW) and BW uniformity, e) litter condition (depth, moisture content, texture, amount removed, and bacteria concentration), f) environmental conditions, and g) welfare conditions (10 variables). Compared to FLA, PLA had a significantly lower incidence of floor eggs (1.4 ± 0.1 vs. 12.6 ± 1.1 eggs per hen housed as of 76 weeks of age (WOA), i.e., approximately 89% reduction), less manure deposition on the floor (0.53 ± 0.02 vs. 1.05 ± 0.04 kg/100 hens/d, dry basis, i.e., approximately 50% reduction), and lower ammonia concentrations due to drier litter (averaging 22% lower). Inclusion of 1.5% experienced hens in the young flock did not show benefit of reducing the incidence of floor eggs (P = 0.48). The percentage of hens remaining on the floor at night was low (< 0.01%) in all cases from 24 WOA onward. No differences were detected between FLA and PLA in hen welfare conditions, mortality, BW, BW uniformity, bacteria concentration in the litter, air temperature, or relative humidity.

Abstract. Perching is a natural behavior of poultry. Considerable research has been done to explore the relationship between group overall perch usage and well-being of laying hens. To quantify the potential cause-effect relationship on individual hens with different health or well-being status (e.g., keel bone deformation, foot pad lesion, social ranking) in a group, it is necessary to identify the perching behavior of individual birds. However, continuously monitoring individual birds in a group poses considerable challenges. To enable such research and potential commercial application, this study developed and validated a radio frequency identification (RFID) based automated perching monitoring system (APMS) for characterizing individual perching behaviors of group-housed poultry. The APMS consisted of an RFID module, a load cell module, and a round wooden perch. The RFID module was comprised of a high-frequency RFID reader, three customized rectangular antennas placed under the perch, and RFID transponders attached to the birds. The load cell module was comprised of a data acquisition system and two load cells supporting both ends of the perch. The daily number of perch visits (PV) and perching duration (PD) for individual birds were used to delineate perching behavior. Three identical experimental pens, five hens per pen, were equipped with the monitoring system. Two RFID transponders were attached to each hen (one per leg), and a distinct color was marked on the bird’s head for video or visual identification and validation. Performance of the APMS was validated by comparing the system outputs with manual observation and labeling over an entire day. Sensitivity and specificity of the system were shown to improve from 97.77% and 99.88%, respectively when using only the RFID module to 99.83% and 99.93% when incorporating weight information from the load cell module. Using this system, we conducted a preliminary trial on the relationship of perching behavior and body weight of laying hens, which revealed little effect of body weight but considerable variability in perching behavior among the individual hens. The study demonstrated that the APMS had excellent performance in measuring perching behaviors of individual birds in a group. The APMS offers great potential for delineating individual differences in perching behavior among hens with different social status or health conditions in a group setting. Keywords: Individual perching behavior, Laying hen, Load cell, Precision livestock farming, RFID, Welfare.