Blood meal supplement improves exploration behaviour but increases escape attempt

Blood meal as an animal feed supplement promotes agricultural sustainability. Blood meal which is high in proteins, lacks certain nutrients hence is expected to give impact on the chicken behaviour and welfare. This study was carried out to determine the impact of blood meal supplement on chicken behaviour. The study involved 100 chickens which were bred in semi-opened poultry house for 6 weeks. At 6th week, chickens provided with fish meal (FM) only had a higher body weight compared to that of the group provided with FM and blood meal supplement (FBM). Normal behaviour such as walking, standing, feeding, drinking, dust bathing and lying down were not significantly affected by the changes in the meal (p>0.05). However, based on a single assessor assessment, FBM group displayed higher score in explore and escape characteristics, than the FM group. On the other hand, FM group displayed a slightly higher score for fear behaviour than the FBM. Findings in this study leads to the conclusion that blood meal supplement has influence on the welfare in chickens farming in terms of their exploration, fear, and escape behaviours. Therefore, amount of blood meal as animal feed supplement in poultry production should be determined carefully to avoid any potential detrimental effect on poultry welfare