The relative preferences for wood shavings or feathers in high and low feather pecking birds

High feather pecking birds (HFP) have been reported to be attracted by feathers of their pen mates while low feather pecking birds (LFP) direct most of their pecking activities towards litter.This raises the question if HFP birds show a preference for pecking at and/or ingestion of feathers over wood shavings and if LFP birds have a preference for wood shavings over feathers and secondly if birds housed alone in cages exhibit stronger motivation for feathers, in the case of HFP birds and wood shavings than birds who are group-housed on shavings.Ten LFP birds and 10 HFP birds were kept in individual cages. Three groups of five HFP birds and three groups of five LFP birds were kept on litter. Each bird was given access to a test arena equipped with four identical bowls. Each bowl was filled with mash, wood shavings, downy feathers and an empty bowl as a standard, respectively. After habituation to the test arena each bird was tested in a food and a non-food deprived state. The amount of substrate eaten, the total duration at each substrate, the latency to eat from each substrate and the number of visits to the different substrates was recorded.The lines did not differ in their relative preference for wood shavings. Caged birds ate more shavings and visited the bowl with wood shavings more often than birds from floor pens. Food deprived HFP birds and non-food deprived caged HFP birds ate more feathers than LFP birds. Our results showed that hens were motivated to eat feathers and wood shavings and that HFP birds had a stronger preference for feathers than LFP birds.