The project is divided into two individual phases associated with the following objectives:
Objective 1: Identify potential risk factors for commercial Swiss laying hen farms including environmental cues (i.e. acoustic information and temperature) and describe piling behaviour according to characteristics such as incidence, frequency, time of day, causes, duration and number of birds involved.
Objective 2: Develop and test effective measures that can detect and reduce piling behaviour and are applicable for commercial Swiss laying hen farms.
The approach of this doctoral thesis would serve as an initial effort since very little information on piling behaviour in Swiss flocks is available. Given the scarcity of information, our work will be guided by the general hypothesis that piling behaviour will not be random across farms and within flocks, but occur in key areas at specific times and in response to particular stimuli. Within Objective 2, we further hypothesize that intervening to eliminate these stimuli within these areas and times will reduce the occurrence of piling.
