TV and video images may help battery hens get over their anxieties and
aggression, scientists in Scotland suggest. Some light entertainment might
reduce the birds鈥� risk of accidental death and behavioural disorders like
feather pecking or self-mutilation.
Bryan Jones and Colette Clark of the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh showed
hens and chicks moving screensaver-type images for 10 minutes each day. Within
three days they were hooked. 鈥淎s soon as the TV appears, they whiz across and
spend time there,鈥� says Jones.
The project, described this week at a meeting of the Association for the
Study of Animal Behaviour in Glasgow, is part of a government-sponsored
programme to find ways of reducing animal alarm and aggression, which is costly
commercially. Jones hopes to find the kinds of images that make hens most at
ease: 鈥淲e鈥檙e having great luck with fish and flying toasters.鈥�
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