Dominance Behavior, Feeding Items Preference and Activity Patterns of Chicken (Gallus G. Domesticus) at Ecg Poultry farm and Meat Processing in Gelan Town, Oromia Special Zone, Ethiopia
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Date
2024-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The dominance interaction, food items preference and activity patterns of Chicken (Gallus g. domesticus) at ECG poultry farm and meat processing were studied in Gelan town Shaggar city, Oromia special zone of Ethiopia. Data were collected for three months, between December 2015 and June 2015 for a total of twenty four days using scan sampling method. A total of 660 scanning periods each with ten minutes duration were employed during the study. Two days each for dominance behavior, activity pattern and food items preference behavioral record in each maturity stages; juvenile, adults, decrepit and mixed was conducted. During dominance behavior study, the behavior of chickens such as playing, chasing, pecking and aggression was recorded. Food items preference of chickens based on their age categories was also examined. Data were analyzed by Excel Microsoft, SPSS software, frequency, chart and table. The average activity pattern behavior in different age classes of chickens had no stastically significant difference both in morning and afternoon time slots (p = 0.584) at 95% confidence level. The result showed that dominance behavior of chicken that was mostly expressed was playing (34%), followed by pecking (29%), aggression (22%) and chasing (16%). There was no significant difference between the sample means of four dominance behaviour (chasing, pecking, playing and aggression) of age classes (P= 0.522) at 95% confidence level. Feeding layer supper showed the highest proportion compared to other activities. Food preference of chickens was layer supper stuff food (64%) and followed by corn (20%). A layer supper food item was more preferred than others by adults and decrepit age group. There was a stastically significant difference of four food items preference in age classes of chickens (p =0.003) at 95% % confidence level
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Dominance, Activity Patterns, Feeding, Aggression, Scanning, Pecking, Chasing, Grooming, Alert, Vocalization, Copulation, Resting, Walking, Drinking and Playing