Method of raising farm animals by exposing them to toys

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Turning now to a more detailed consideration of the invention, in a first experiment, five hundred laying hens were provided with pecking toys.
Aggressive pecking by laying hens and its relation to peck order and egg production is a well known issue.
Researchers have attempted to reduce aggressive pecking of laying hens for many years in order to improve production.
Beak trimming and polypeepers (plastic devices restricting forward vision) have been utilized for this purpose.
The purpose then of pecking toys for laying hens is so chickens will peck or play more with those toys, and less with each other.
In the experiment, at five months of age, Leghorn chickens were exposed to a metal key ring with three beads and a jingle bell.
The ring (one ring for every three chickens) was hung in the center of the cage and could easily be pecked by the hens.
Good results were obtained with a ring three centimeters in diameter with red, blue, and green or yellow beads attached to it.
Experiments using these toys have shown a consistent increase in egg production, and a steady decrease in feed use and mortality following seven months of production as illustrated in Table 1.

TABLE 1
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Egg Production
Feed Usage
Mortality
(% hen-day)
Kg/bird %
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Control 80.
95 23.
3 5.
0
Experimental
81.
70 23.
0 3.
0
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In a second commercial experiment, 2000 laying hens were provided with pecking toys.
A decrease in mortality (0.
5 percent vs.
1%) and increase in egg production (2969 eggs vs.
2812 eggs (sum of 4 separate arbitrary egg countings)) resulted, following two months of production.
Feed usage was not measured because of technical difficulties.
In the third and fourth experiments, fish were provided with environment enrichment toys