2004): Responses of young red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) and white leghorn layers to familiar and unfamiliar social stimuli

ABSTRACT Social preferences of familiar over unfamil-iar social stimuli in chicks may be used to measure social-ity, a characteristic important for the welfare of poultry in commercial production. We studied social preferences and reaction to strangers in young White Leghorns and red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) in 3 tests. All chicks were raised and housed in 2 groups of 34 individuals per breed. At 24 to 29 d of age 38 chicks per breed were tested in 2 runway tests. In the first, chicks had a free choice between familiar and unfamiliar breed members, and in the second the choice was between unfamiliar chicks of their own breed and the other breed. On d 41 to 42, spacing and agonistic interactions of 28 pairs of chicks per breed (in half of the pairs, chicks were unfamiliar to each other) (Key words: coping, jungle fowl, layer, production, social preference