Placing of enrichment and its impact on the distribution of hens in the outdoor run

Abstract: The majority of the organic egg producers in Sweden are certified according to the rules of the organisation KRAV, who have stricter directions than the legislation of the European commission. In 2013, KRAV decided to clarify the rule on use of the outdoor area to ensure a maximum utilization of the offered area. This was met with dissatisfaction among many egg producers who saw great difficulties in encouraging hens to move around the entire pasture area. As a response, KRAV formed a project group to investigate different methods to increase the hens' utilization of the outdoor run. This master thesis was included in the project with the purpose to compare how two different arrangements of the same type of artificial enrichment affected the distribution of the hens on the range. The experiment was conducted on four organic egg farms in Östergötland county in Sweden during April and May in 2015. In one paddock on each farm, two arrangements of enrichments were set up. Each arrangement consisted of eight tin roofs with four wooden legs and eight big straw bales. In one arrangement the enrichment was placed in a line with a straw bale and thereafter a roof and so on. In the other arrangement one roof was paired with a straw bale and these pairs were placed in a zigzag formation with ten meters in diagonal from each other. The 30-meter empty area between the two arrangements of enrichment functioned as a control area. The enriched areas attracted more hens than the control area but the difference between the two arrangements of enrichment was not as clear. The zigzag arrangement seemed to be more favourable, with a higher number of hens than the line formation, but the result was not statistically significant and differed between farms. Hens moved further out within the enriched areas, but usually no more than 35 meters, with only a few hens as far out as 50 meters on a few occasions. Due to other parameters such as weather condition and differences in paddock design between farms it is difficult to draw a conclusion of which one of the arrangements is more preferable than the other. As found in several earlier studies, there are indications in this study that enriched areas attract more birds compared to areas with no enrichment.