Frequent diet change has been identified as a risk factor for feather pecking in commercial flocks but the mechanism underlying this association is not known. In this experiment we simulated a commercial change of diet between high quality (HQ) 19% protein, and low quality (LQ) 15% protein, diets. Twelve pairs of birds were fed both diets simultaneously for 38 days to determine whether clear preferences for the diets existed. A further 12 triplets of birds were fed either HQ or LQ diets for 38 days to examine any absolute effects of quality on behaviour. The remaining triplets received, on day 29, either a LQ to HQ diet change (n = 12 groups) or an HQ to LQ diet change (n = 12 groups). Half of the groups in these diet change treatments received oregano oil as a potential ‘masking’ agent to disguise the diet change. No dietary preferences were detected and there were no absolute effects of diet on behaviour. Diet change provoked significant increases in beak-related activity. Specifically, affiliative pecking (allopreening directed towards comb or beak) was increased after diet change. Masking the diet reduced the effects of diet change. Injurious pecking remained at low levels throughout the experiment and was not affected by diet change, but the relationship between affiliative pecking and subsequent injurious pecking requires further investigation.

The behavioural time budget of 140 turkey poults housed on litter in groups of 10-11 in small pens was recorded by individual scan sampling from 1-day-old to 12-weeks-old. Over this time period some behaviour (sitting/sleeping) remained relatively constant, some (feeding) declined and remained low, some (standing/walking, drinking) declined and rose again, while some (environmental pecking, bird pecking, preening) rose and then declined. By 12 weeks the incidence of some behaviours appeared to have stabilized, though others were still changing. A substantial proportion of their activity could be categorized as beak-related behaviour. Feather pecking and cannibalism are major behavioural and welfare problems in intensively-housed turkeys; it is postulated that one reason for this may be because a major proportion of their beak-related behaviour is strongly directed towards plumage, either their own or that of other birds, rather than towards food or environmental stimuli. One possible solution may be to seek ways of increasing the proportion of time they spend feeding.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of selection on low mortality in combination with brooding by a mother hen on open-field response at 5-6 weeks of age and on plumage and body condition at 42 weeks of age. Birds in the experiment were either selected for low mortality in group housing (low mortality line) or randomly selected (control line) for two generations. These lines originated from the same population. Twenty groups of 10 female birds from each line were used. Within each line, ten groups were brooded by a foster mother and ten groups were non-brooded. At 5-6 weeks of age, the chicks were tested in an open-field test for five minutes. At 42 weeks of age, plumage condition and incidence of comb lesions and toe wounds of all birds was recorded. It was found that both brooded chicks and chicks from the low mortality line were more active in the open-field test at 5-6 weeks of age, indicating that they were less fearful or had a stronger exploratory motivation. No interactions were found between selection on low mortality and brooding. Birds from the low mortality line also had a lower incidence of comb and toe wounds compared with the control line at 42 weeks of age. No effect of brooding on plumage condition or incidence of wounds was found. This study indicates that selection on low mortality is a promising way forward to reduce maladaptive behaviour in laying hens, especially if such an approach is combined with improved rearing conditions.

Injurious pecking remains one of the biggest animal welfare and economic challenges for free-range egg producers. This prospective epidemiological study investigated the development of vent pecking (VP) and cannibalism on 62 free-range and organic UK farms (119 flocks). Flocks were visited at 25 (± 5) and 40 (± 5) weeks of age. Rates of VP were recorded and farmers were asked whether they had observed cannibalism in their flocks. Environmental and management data were collected for each flock. Risk factors associated with these behaviours were modelled using MLwiN. VP was observed in 19.5 and 29.9% of flocks, at mean rates of 0.35 and 0.21 bouts per bird per h, at 25 and 40 weeks, respectively. Cannibalism was reported at 22.6% of visits. The odds of flocks showing VP or cannibalism increased with rate of severe feather pecking (SFP). VP was more likely to be observed in laying houses with more and/or longer pop holes and where feed was scattered on the floor. Providing more aerial perch length, or perches > 0.5 m in height, was associated with increased risk of VP. When SFP was excluded from the model, likelihood of VP was higher in flocks fed pelleted feed. All of these may provide a useful basis from which to derive management strategies to reduce the risk of VP and thus improve the welfare of laying hens. However, it is important to remember that this study does not elucidate the causal relationships between these variables, and further work is needed to understand the mechanism behind these associations.

This article offers a new approach to early modern global history, dubbed (dis)entangled history as a way to combine the conventional focus on the history of connections with a necessary appreciation of the elements of disconnection and disintegration. To exemplify this approach, it offers a case study related to the history of cannibalism as both a disputed anthropophagic practice and a cultural reference point across the early modern world. Through a rich multilingual and multimedia source base, we trace how the idea of Indigenous Tapuya endo-cannibalism in Brazil travelled across the Atlantic through Europe and Africa to East Asia. The idea of Tapuya cannibalism crossed some linguistic borders, stopped at others and interacted unevenly with long-standing Ottoman, Polish, West African, Islamic and Chinese ideas about ‘cannibal countries’, of which it was just one more example. This trajectory challenges the historiographical consensus that early modern ideas about cannibalism were centred on the Atlantic world. By tracing how one particular discourse did and did not travel around the globe, this article offers not just a theoretical statement, but a ‘fleshed out’ and concrete approach to writing about intermittent connectedness during the period 1500–1800.

The aim of the study was to analyse the influence on tail-biting in undocked pigs during the rearing period of crude fibre in piglets' rations. All pigs were fed the same pre-starter until weaning. The study comprised two trials with four experimental groups each. The first trial contained: a control group (CG1) with conventional feed (up to 40 g/kg crude fibre), two groups with an increased crude fibre content of up to 50 g/kg (G5) and 60 g/kg (G6), respectively, and one group with conventional feed and crude fibre provision ad libitum (AL). The second trial consisted of a control group (CG2) which received the same conventional feed as CG1 and three treatment groups with either soya hulls (SS), dried sugar beet pulp (DP) or oat fibre (OF) admixed to their ration, to achieve a crude fibre content of 60 g/kg in all three groups. The rearing week, the batch, the treatment group (only in trial one) and the interaction between batch and treatment group had a significant influence on tail-lesions (P < 0.05). The tail-biting process started in rearing week 3 (trial one) and 5 (trial two), respectively. Due to the low frequency of tail-biting during the present study, crude fibre seems to have no major influence on tail-biting during the rearing period. This unexpected result may be caused by the optimized conditions in which the piglets were kept and the intensive animal observation carried out by the employees. However, the batch effect was most influential.

Is it possible to trace the contours of a bioethical reflection on nutrition? The present study tries to do so, relying on the metaphorical and symbolic value that food often takes. Indeed, eating does not mean just getting sufficient nutrition, because through the offer and exchange of food, people recognize and welcome each other. In this sense we are all, in some way, cannibals, because in eating, we eat the other, even if the introjection of the other is only symbolic and not literal, as in the case of actual cannibals. Eating habits are also very rooted in various cultures and sometimes resist migratory flows to a greater extent than language and religion do. Consequently, the disgust for, or the refusal of, other people’s food may be an indicator of a more general rejection of the diversity of other people. The conclusion reached by this study is that eating is taking care of the self and of the other and, therefore, as Jacques Derrida observes, it is necessary to “eat well” and also “eat the good.”

Starting from two paintings by Salvador Dalì (The Enigma of William Tell and Autumnal Cannibalism), the article explores Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung’s idea of erotic cannibalism. The fear of being eaten is an archetype of the collective unconscious, as fairy tales clearly reveal. Following Jacques Derrida’s reflections, the author suggests that the fear of being eaten is not limited to anthropophagic cultures, because there is a sort of symbolic cannibalism which has to do with the capacity for annihilation. The petrifying gaze of Medusa, described by Jean Paul Sartre, is a good example of this symbolic cannibalism. On the opposite side of the spectrum, compared to the petrifying gaze, we find the recognizing look of a mother toward her child. For the child, the mother embodies the good subject, which is reassuring and nonthreatening (the fairy who stands in contrast to the devouring ogre in fairy tales). Sara Ruddick explicitly refers to this motherhood model in her book Maternal Thinking, where she lays out the methodology for the ethics of care. The maternal, or recognizing gaze, as the opposite of Medusa’s gaze portrayed by Sartre, is well described in a compelling text by the Italian novelist Luigi Pirandello. At the same time, it plays an important role in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s The Phenomenology of the Spirit. Finally, the article returns to Salvador Dalì, showing how in his life, the artist experienced the Other’s gaze in both forms: the objectifying one, represented by the artist’s father (portrayed in The Enigma of William Tell), and the recognizing one, embodied by his partner Gala (portrayed in Autumnal Cannibalism).

This study relied on the day-by-day analysis of bioenergetics and prey size preference inisolated cannibals of the African catfish Heterobranchus longifilis(13–57 mm standard length, 3–500 mg dry body mass, n = 153) that were offeredad libitum conspecific prey of adequate sizes in small-sized (2-L)environments under controlled conditions (12L:12D, 30 °C). In these conditions, cannibals ofincreasing body size selected preferentially prey of decreasing size relative to theirown, and increasingly closer to the optimal prey size (producing the highest grossconversion efficiency). The role of experience in cannibalism was found of secondaryimportance relative to body size, both as regards food intake and prey size selectivity.These results indicate that in environments that minimize the escape capacities of theirpotential victims, as applies to most aquacultural contexts, fish exercising cannibalismtend to forage optimally, which has rarely been evidenced for piscivorous behaviour. Thepresent study further highlights that H. longifilis possesses a very highcapacity for growth, which originates from the combination of high food intake and veryhigh conversion efficiency, and makes this species of utmost interest for aquaculturistswherever fast growth is desirable, but also extremely prone to cannibalism whereverfeeding schedules are inadequate.