Harnessing novel technology and approaches to monitor and improve productivity of UK broiler breeders

For the purpose of food security and sustainability it is important to manage populations of domesticated animals, increasing productivity and fertility while safeguarding welfare. In order to do this, it is necessary to understand the species' behaviour and how it manifests in a commercial environment. Sexual behaviour is of particular relevance, as individuals invest large amounts of resources in competition for mates, and because the outcome of this competition affects the number and quality of offspring. Sexual behaviours are to a large degree shaped by sexual selection, the process by which traits that make individuals more successful in the competition for reproductive opportunities become more prevalent in a population.
The domestic chicken, a species of high commercial significance, will be the focus of this PhD. For this species in particular, social behaviour very strongly modulates sexual selection, making it an especially challenging and exciting species in which to study how patterns of social behaviour and sexual competition determine the fertility and productivity of populations. My thesis will have two parts: the first part will focus on the basic biology, using red junglefowl, the wild ancestor of all domestic chickens, at the John Krebs field station at Wytham, and the second will look at behaviour in large commercial flocks of chickens at farms facilitated by Aviagen, the industrial partner in my project. Since chickens are such an important food producer for our species, it is valuable to learn more about their behaviour in these very large, non-naturalistic populations which represent tens of billions of birds worldwide. AfS, ENWW