Animal welfare aspects of goose liver production without force feeding: selection possibilities for behaviour forms

Abstract

The objective of our experiment − accomplished between 2003−2004 − was to analyse the basic behaviour forms of the domestic geese (feed intake, playing, social behaviour, preening) in order to determine the selection possibilities for these behaviour forms. Because of the small dataset genetic parameters were estimated using Bayesian statistics through animal model. The heritability of certain behaviour forms was low which suggests that the analysed behaviour forms are mainly determined by environmental factors consequently small selection response can be expected. However, the time spent with feed intake (which is the most important trait from our viewpoint) showed heritability of 0.27−0.28 and might be a suitable selection criterion.