Turkey poults develop a wide range of behaviors besides eating, sleeping and resting in their first week of life. They also learn play behaviors and activities to comfort themselves, according to research by Alexandra Jackson, doctoral student, Auburn University.
“During this developmental phase, we observe turkey poults start to form social bonds, assess their environment, identify feed and overall practice, and refine their behaviors,” Jackson explained.
“Understanding bird behavior is critical because we use it as an indicator of bird mental and physical health,” she continued. “This knowledge will help guide management practices that contribute to fulfilling bird behavioral needs, thus enhancing their well-being.”
Jackson discussed her research at the 2025 Poultry Science Association annual meeting.
Study set-up
Jackson and her research team designed the observational study to measure turkey poult behavior by age, time of day and sequence of behaviors. They placed Nicholas Select male turkey poults in three pens with 25 birds per pen on day of hatch and provided them with feed and water ad libitum. The birds were housed in an environment that matched commercial conditions.
For data collection, the researchers continuously recorded poult activity from day 1 to 7 using a Lorex infrared camera and network video recorder system.
Behavior was coded into five categories:
- Active (walking, running, standing)
- Resting (sitting, sleeping)
- Comfort (stretching, adjusting, wing flapping)
- Nutritive (eating, drinking, foraging)
- Play (frolicking, strutting, warm running)
For the analysis, the research team assessed the duration of each behavior by age and time of day, as well as by diversity and sequence of behaviors.
Behaviors increase with age
Overall, the researchers observed an early expansion of behaviors in the young poults. This occurred while sleeping, sitting, stretching and adjusting behaviors decreased during the week. As a result, birds had more time available to engage in other behaviors.
“We saw locomotive and standing behaviors increase as the poults aged,” Jackson said. Explorative and social-type play behaviors also increased with age.
The time-of-day analysis showed that poults slept during dark periods and became active and engaged in nutritive behaviors in the morning and midday. Comfort behaviors were exhibited more in the pre-dark and evening hours than in the dark or morning periods.
During midday and afternoon, explorative and play behaviors appeared most frequently. As the poults exhibited more social play behaviors, these were frequently performed in the afternoon and evening.
Most common behaviors
“Overall, poults allotted most of their time toward resting behaviors,” Jackson said. “This shows the importance of rest for these birds. However, resting time decreased with age, increasing the time birds spent on other behaviors.
“We also observed that active behaviors were higher on day 1 than on day 2, along with nutritive and explorative behaviors,” she continued. “We believe this demonstrates initial assessment and acclimation to the new surroundings.”
Active behaviors were frequent because these were either a component of another behavior or allowed a poult to move from one location to another to perform a different behavior, Jackson explained.
“We saw an interesting pattern in the time of day for play,” Jackson said. “These were performed later in the day. Birds first needed to perform nutritive behaviors in the morning.” Then they were available for social play in the afternoon.
Active behaviors important
“In conclusion, we saw the early life expansion of the behavioral repertoire of turkey poults,” Jackson stated. “There were significant interactions between age, time of day and sequence in behavior performance.
“We also demonstrated the importance of active behaviors,” she added. Active behaviors helped poults facilitate other behaviors needed for their behavioral development.
