title: External factors and causation of dustbathing in domestic hens.
abstract: Dustbathing is known to be motivated by complex interactions between internal factors which build up over time and external factors, such as the sight of a dusty substrate. In this study, the effects of other external factors were investigated. Environmental temperature was shown to be important; frequencies of dustbathing were greater when hens were held at 22 than at 10°C (P<0.01). In a second experiment, a radiant heat source or a radiant heat+light source, balanced to give the same radiant heat, resulted in more dustbathing behaviour during a 1-h stimulus period than during the same period with no stimulus (P<0.05). Components of dustbathing were increased more by the heat+light stimulus than by the heat stimulus alone (P<0.03). In a third experiment, the amount of dustbathing performed by individual hens in cages with dustbaths was increased by the presence of a group of hens dustbathing in an adjoining pen with a dustbath compared with the amount occurring when the hens were absent from the pen.
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal and Poultry Science and The Colonel K.L. Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.
authors.forename: I J
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Duncan
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal and Poultry Science and The Colonel K.L. Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Widowski
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal and Poultry Science and The Colonel K.L. Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Malleau
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Langford, Bristol BS18 7DU, UK.
authors.forename: A C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Lindberg
authors.affiliation: Swan's Lagoon Beef Cattle Research Station, Millaroo via Ayr, Queensland 4807, Australia.
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Petherick