Can Japanese quail male aggressions toward a female cagemate predict aggressiveness toward unknown conspecifics?

CONDAT, L.; MARIN, R.H.; GUZMÁN, D. A.; PELLEGRINI, S.

Orlando, Florida

Congreso; PSA Annual Meeting; 2017

Poultry Science Association

The incidence of aggressive behaviors in mature poultry is a topic of high concern from an economic and from a welfare point of view. Herein, we evaluated in Japanese quail whether the level of male aggressiveness expressed toward a female cagemate can predict aggressiveness towards other unknown conspecifics. At 4 wk of age, birds were housed in 90 male-female pairs in breeding cages. Aggressive and reproductive behaviors were recorded when birds were 11 to 12 wk of age, in 20 min observations along 9 days. Males were classified as either high or low female peckers according to whether they directed more than 5 or no pecks toward their female cagemate (H-FP and L-FP males, respectively; 15 males in each group). At 16 wk of age, social interactions between 1 H-FP and 1 L-FP male were evaluated during 60 min in a novel environment with an audience (behind a wire mesh partition) of two unknown female conspecifics. According to the male aggressive performance, 13 of the 15 H-FP males were winners of the interactions and also performed a higher (P