Appropriate rearing is essential for ensuring the welfare and productivity of laying hens. Early experience has the potential to affect the development of fearfulness. This study tested whether rearing in aviaries, as opposed to cages, reduces the fearfulness of laying hens after transfer to furnished cages. Fear responses were recorded as avoidance of a novel object in the home cage. Lohmann S...

Twenty 35-wk-old chickens, including 10 Single Comb White Leghorn (SCWL) and 10 Rhode Island Red (RIR) hens, were used to examine the effects of egg and yolk weights on egg yolk antibody (IgY) production in the two strains of chickens immunized with BSA. The SCWL chickens had a greater (P < 0.01) percentage hen-day production and greater egg and yolk weights than did the RIR chickens. However, ...

Astudy was carried out with the objective of establishing heat and moisture loads in three commercial egg laying units in Alberta under winter conditions. The units studied were typical of triple-deck, deep-pit, and shallow-gutter, caged systems. Each unit was monitored for six 24-h periods over 4 mo. Adata acquisition system was used tocollect the data necessary to carry outa complete heat and...

The effect of the light schedule on toxic interactions between propranolol and disopyramide were studied in chick embryos. Fertilized eggs of White Leghorns were incubated under dark conditions and investigated, on two occasions, under light conditions or under dark conditions. Propranolol, with and without disopyramide, was injected into the air sac of fertilized eggs on the 16th day of incuba...

A study was conducted to test the inclusion rate of corn dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) in laying hen diets on egg production (EP) responses for a full production cycle. A total of 288 Bovan Single Comb White Leghorn laying hens were fed diets containing 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25% DDGS from 24 to 46 wk (phase 1) and 47 to 76 wk (phase 2) of age. The diets were formulated to be isoca...

Studies were conducted using 68 males from the seventh generation of a line of meat-type breeder chickens selected for increased duration of fertility of frozen-thawed semen and 69 males of the randomly selected control line. These chickens were used to determine the presence or absence of differences between the selected and control lines with respect to fertility and spermatozoal motility whe...