Avaliação etológica de frangos de corte submetidos aos diferentes modelos de enriquecimento ambiental

Abstract

Animal behavioral and its physiological state are influenced by the environment, which can be managed to reduce stress levels, increasing animal well-being and allowing its expression of natural behaviors. Thus, animal welfare should perform along with livestock production once reduced stress or even pain may increase animal production potential resulting in higher production of meat of better quality. This experiment aims to develop new technologies for the enrichment of the housing environment of broiler chickens, improving animal welfare. Two types of environmental enrichment will be evaluated using 345 male and 345 female Cobb 500, distributed in a completely randomized scheme in a 2 x 3 factorial design (two sex of the broiler chickens and three models of environmental enrichment) with 5 replications. Will be used as environmental enrichment, treatments: control treatment, short wall (using three bricks aligned inside the Box) and iron perch with wooden stand and adjustable height. Will be assessed animal aggressive behavior\stress, the presence or absence of natural behavior of the bird, and these behavioral ratings are performed six times a day. The variables were analyzed using Bayesian Inference 5% probability. It can be concluded that the use of environmental enrichment for broilers, significant effect on most of the behavioral parameters.In relation to male sex and female, males had more significant responses regarding the use of environmental enrichment, treatment with the short wall enabled a better balance of birds especially during the final phase, where they are larger and heavier, longer treatment with perch was most commonly used at the beginning of reviews where the birds were lighter, therefore it does not provide a comfort zone as the wall to the phases where the birds are heavier.