LAUSR

Abstract The objective of this study was to evaluate effects of hatching type and production system on behavioral traits in geese. The animal subjects within the study consisted of 240 native Turkish goslings produced in artificial (120) or natural incubation (120) conditions. After completing hatching process, the goslings hatched by natural incubation remained with their mothers for 3 days, while the goslings produced by artificial incubation were immediately taken to the production house. The study was designed with a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement (hatching type × production system) with 4 pens per treatment combination and 15 geese per pen. For each behavior (accessing the outdoor area, fearfulness, foraging, feather pecking, preening, resting–standing, wing flapping–feather shaking, running), the percentage of geese performing specific behaviors to the total number of birds in the pen was determined. There was no difference between the levels of outdoor access between the geese hatched artificially and naturally: 84.5 % and 85.4 % of them accessed the outdoors, respectively. The interaction effect was found to be significant in fearfulness, feather pecking, foraging, resting–standing, wing flapping–feather shaking, and preening behaviors (p