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• Handling wild animals is risky and strategies to reduce risk should be considered. • Modified traps for the capture of wild pigs reduced trap-related injuries. • Enclosing occupied traps in shade cloth moderated flight behaviors. • Darting wild pigs in traps can be eased with trap modifications. Research on the ecology, behavior, and movements of wild pigs (Sus scrofa) often involves immobilization of study animals to attach GPS collars or other monitoring devices. In this process, it is important to minimize stress and injury to study subjects. Challenges in handling trapped wild pigs are common because multiple animals are often captured together, wild pigs exhibit intense fight-or-flight responses, large traps provide space for severe trap-related injuries, and immobilization drugs are less effective on excited wild pigs. We trapped and handled 148 wild pigs in corral traps in TX, USA, and evaluated two trap modifications for alleviating these issues, including: 1) using tightly spaced wire mesh for trap walls, and 2) enshrouding traps with a visual barrier prior to handling. We identified that the tightly spaced wire mesh of horse panels (10.2 × 5.1 cm) reduced injuries 88% compared to more widely spaced mesh sizes (10.2 × 10.2 cm or larger). We documented that it took an average of 71.6 s to enshroud traps, which corresponded to a rapid reduction in flight behaviors from wild pigs (i.e., ≤52.6 s until stationary). Enshrouding corral traps facilitated a 28% quicker delivery of chemical immobilization drugs via darting as wild pigs became inactive. We recommend using tightly spaced mesh of horse panels to reduce trap-related injuries and incorporation of trap shrouds to facilitate delivery of chemical immobilization drugs when handling wild pigs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Using laying hens, we investigated whether position of a nest box, both within the pen and relative to other nest boxes, influenced the preference for a nest box, and how a sudden and marked change to the preferred box influenced the use of nest boxes by the hens. Groups (n =12) of 15 Isa Warren hens were housed in pens, each with five identical nest boxes in different positions: Two single (in a corner or not) and a triplet of nest boxes (one of which in a corner). The use of nest boxes was determined by the number of eggs laid daily in each box. Three experiments, each lasting 10 days, were carried out. First, the undisturbed use of each of the nest box types was investigated, and a strong preference (P <0.001) was found for single nest boxes in a corner, with 62% of the nest box eggs laid there. Second, each of the hen groups was moved to another pen allocated at random, and where the configuration of nest box types differed from that of their original pen. An effect of nest box type was found (P <0.001), with 41% of all eggs laid in the single nest box in a corner, and 26% of eggs laid in the corner triplet nest box. Third, the attractiveness of the preferred nest box within each pen was reduced by removing the Astroturf mat from the nest box floor, exposing the wire netting below. This resulted in a change of nest box use (P <0.001) from the single, corner nest box (67%; n =6) to the corner triplet nest box (37%) and the single nest box not in a corner (35%), and from the corner triplet nest box (48%; n =5) to the remaining triplet nest boxes (40% and 22%, respectively). The initial preference for a single nest box in a corner was probably due to a combination of isolation and view of the surroundings provided by this type of nest box. The manipulations in experiments II and III revealed that some hens were location conservative, i.e. continued laying in a corner location (or as close to that as possible), whereas others were isolation conservative, i.e. continued laying in the most isolated nest box despite it being positioned in a different area of the pen. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study examines the development of feather pecking and its relationship to exploration in Burmese red junglefowl (Gallus gallus spadiceus). Ten groups of four chicks each were raised from hatching on wire mesh floors (home pen). Two of the four chicks in each group received experience in exploratory-rich environments four times a week for 5 weeks, and the other two chicks remained in the home pen. Observations conducted in the home pen revealed that chicks deprived of experience in exploratory-rich environments performed significantly more gentle feather pecking, and tended to show more severe feather pecking than the experienced birds. Experience in the exploratory-rich environments did not affect the frequency of environmental pecking or food pecking. These results suggest that chicks deprived of exploratory-rich environments may come to perceive pen mates as appropriate exploratory stimuli and subsequently direct exploratory behavior toward conspecifics. This tendency to peck pen mates may lead to the development of feather pecking. We suggest that forceful pecks may be reinforcing, and that the more likely pecks are directed to a conspecific, the more likely feather pecking will develop. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Floor scratches increased when hens were provided with an artificial turf on a cage floor. • When hens were given a net, floor scratching increased, promoting bouts of sham dustbathing. • Fifty percent of the behaviours 1 min before sham dustbathing comprised resting and preening. • Thirty percent of the behaviours 1 min before sham dustbathing were feed-related. Feed particles are preferred for foraging and they are also a stimulus for sham dustbathing. Most sham dustbathing bouts start with bill raking in the feed by caged hens. As hens often exhibit a floor scratching behaviour, an element of both sham dustbathing and foraging, by moving their legs back and forth while kicking the substrates before and after bill raking in the feed, some stimuli exerted on their legs might promote floor scratching behaviour. Therefore, the aim of this study was to test the effects of four types of floor stimuli at feed trough side on sham dustbathing. Behaviours performed just before sham dustbathing were also simultaneously examined. Commercial White Leghorn pullets were transferred to the poultry house and housed in simplified furnished cages at 17 weeks of age. Experiments with floor stimuli began when hens were 70-week-old. In total, 48 hens that had been reared on a wire floor without litter were tested. Four groups of three hens were taken from their furnished home cages and introduced to four non-furnished experimental cages. One-third of the floor of wire mesh at feed trough side was covered with one of the four floor stimuli: net, artificial turf, wooden board or draining board. Two groups were tested with one of floor stimuli, while the other two were used as controls for 2 days; then, the treatments were switched so that all the birds received both control and floor stimulus treatments. When hens were provided with a net, floor scratching behaviours were significantly increased (P < 0.05), stimulating bill rakes and other bouts of sham dustbathing. Floor scratching behaviours were also strengthened after treatment with an artificial turf. Fifty and thirty percent of the behaviours exhibited 1 min before sham dustbathing comprised resting and preening behaviours, and feed-related behaviours, respectively. These results suggest that some floor materials could promote floor scratching behaviours by stimulating a tactile sensation for their legs. The hens had exhibited sham dustbathing in feed in their home wire-floor cages; therefore, previous experience of sham dustbathing and observation of other hen during resting and preening may influence the hens to react sensitively and start sham dustbathing themselves. Feeding, foraging and sham dustbathing are supposed to reinforce each other; therefore, feed-related behaviours observed just before sham dustbathing might account for the close relationship among feeding, foraging, and sham dustbathing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]