Funnel nest box: a system for automatic recording of individual performance and behaviour of laying hens in floor management.

Changes in legislation promote alternative group housing systems for laying hens. To evaluate actual hybrid layers and to improve breeding programmes, individual data about laying performance and behaviour are necessary. Therefore a Funnel Nest Box (FNB) and an Electronic Pop Hole (EPH) were developed. This paper presents the FNB and results regarding the reliability of the FNB and analysis of data from a flock over the entire laying period. The FNB is designed as a single nest box. Each hen carries a passive transponder that is registered by an antenna in the nest box. The assignment “egg to hen” is obtained by combining the transponder ID, the egg sensor signal and the position of the egg in the egg collecting tube. Data from an initial flock of 337 Lohmann Silver hens (LS, brown layers) and 29 Lohmann Selected Leghorn hens (LSL, white layers) were collected and evaluated. To assess the reliability of the assignment „egg to hen”, the position of all white eggs was recorded and subsequently checked, weather one of the 29 LSL hens was assigned to these eggs. Video recording was used to evaluate the reliability of the nest occupancy times. In total 6,521 white eggs were collected and 95.8 % of these eggs could be correctly assigned to the individual hen. Failures occurred due to double nest occupation (0.6%), incorrect egg identification (2.0 %), plausibility problems (0.5 %) and nonspecific errors (1.1 %). In 97.8 % of the evaluated entrances and exits (n= 770) the hens could be identified within 5 seconds in the FNB. 277 LS hens were used for analyses about the laying performance and behaviour. All hens visited the FNB at least three times but 8 hens (2.9 %) had never laid an egg in the FNB. Another 27 hens (9.7 %) laid only between 1 and 200 eggs in the FNB, 242 hens (87.4 %) laid between 201 and 325 eggs. Clear preferences for some nest boxes could not be observed. For hens with more than 200 eggs, the minimum number of FNB’s used to lay all eggs was 18. Further evaluations about the duration of nest visits, the average amount of eggs per laying sequence and about the average time delay between eggs of the same laying sequence were done from the fifth laying period to the end of the observation time. All hens visited the nest box and for the majority of the hens visits without a laid egg lasted on average 5 to 10 minutes and visits where an egg was laid 15 to 30 minutes. Half of the hens with an average amount of 2 to 17 eggs per laying sequence, showed a greater variety for the average time delay between the eggs of the same laying sequence (11 to 76 minutes) and a lower laying performance (47 to 229 eggs) than the other half of the hens with an average amount of 18 to 80 eggs per laying sequence (average time delay between the eggs: 10 to 29 minutes; laying performance: 172 to 240 eggs). The FNB can be regarded as a reliable system for the recording of the laying performance and behaviour of hens. In combination with the EPH the behaviour of the hens can be better analysed and breeding programmes as well as the management and the housing systems can be improved.