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Reducing floor eggs in cage-free (CF) housing systems is among primary concerns for egg producers. The objective of this research was to evaluate the effects of ground robot manipulation on reduction of floor eggs. In addition, the effects of ground robot manipulation on production performance, stress response, bone quality, and behavior were also investigated. Two successive flocks of 180 Hy-Line Brown hens at 34 weeks of this age were used. The treatment structure for each flock consisted of six pens with three treatments (without robot running, with one-week robot running, and with two-weeks robot running), resulting in two replicates per treatment per flock and four replicates per treatment with two flocks. Two phases were involved with each flock. Phase 1 (weeks 35-38) mimicked the normal scenario, and phase 2 (weeks 40-43) mimicked a scenario after inadvertent restriction to nest box access. Results indicate that the floor egg reduction rate in the first two weeks of phase 1 was 11.0% without the robot treatment, 18.9% with the one-week robot treatment, and 34.0% with the two-week robot treatment. The effect of robot operation on floor egg production was not significant when the two phases of data were included in the analysis. Other tested parameters were similar among the treatments, including hen-day egg production, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, live body weight, plasma corticosterone concentration, bone breaking force, ash percentage, and time spent in nest boxes. In conclusion, ground robot operation in CF settings may help to reduce floor egg production to a certain degree for a short period right after being introduced. Additionally, robot operation does not seem to negatively affect hen production performance and well-being., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Stretching behavior is one of the broiler comfort behaviors that could be used for animal welfare assessment. However, there is currently no methodology for automatic monitoring of stretching behavior under representative production practices. The objectives of this study were to (1) develop a faster region-based convolutional neural network (faster R-CNN) stretching behavior detector for broiler stretching behavior detection, (2) evaluate broiler stretching behaviors under stocking densities (SDs) of 27 (27SD), 29 (29SD), 33 (33SD), and 39 kg/m 2 (39SD) and at weeks 4 and 5 of bird ages, and (3) examine the temporal and spatial distribution of broiler stretching behaviors. The results show that the precision, recall, specificity, and accuracy were over 86% on broiler stretching detection across all SDs and bird ages using the faster R-CNN stretching behavior detector. Broilers spent 230-533 sec stretching every day and showed more stretching behaviors under the 29SD, 33SD, and 39SD in week 4 and under the 29SD and 33SD in week 5, as compared to other SDs. They performed less stretching in a couple of hours after light ON and before light OFF but preferred to stretch in areas with less traffic and disturbance, that is, along the fences and away from the inspection aisle. It is concluded that the stretching behavior detector had acceptable performance in detecting broiler stretching, thus being a useful tool for broiler stretching detection. Broiler stretching behavior is affected by SD and bird age and shows temporal and spatial variations., (Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)