Genetic analysis of feed efficiency and novel feeding behavior traits measured in group-housed broilers using electronic feeders.

This study aimed to estimate genetic parameters for feeding behavior (FB) traits and to assess their genetic relationship with performance traits in group-housed broilers. In total, 99,472,151 visits were recorded for 95,711 birds between 2017 and 2022 using electronic feeders. The visits were first clustered into 2,667,617 daily observations for ten FB traits: daily feed intake (DFI), daily number of visits (NVIS), time spent at the feeders (TSF), number of visited feeders (NVF), visiting activity interval (VAI), feeding rate (FR), daily number of meals (NMEAL), average intake per meal (INTMEAL), number of visits per meal (VISMEAL) and interval between meals (MEALIVL). All FB traits were then considered as the average per bird across the feeding test period. Three growth traits (body weight at the start - SBW and at the end of the feeding test - FBW, and weight gain over the test period - BWG), and 2 feed efficiency (FE) traits (Feed Conversion Rate - FCR and Residual Feed Intake - RFI) were also recorded. The (co)variance components were estimated using multitrait animal mixed models. For growth and FE, the heritability (h2 ) estimates were moderate, ranging from 0.20 ± 0.01 (BWG) to 0.32 ± 0.02 (RFI). Overall, the h2 estimates for FB traits were higher than for productive traits, ranging from 0.31 ± 0.01 (DFI) to 0.56 ± 0.02 (TSF). DFI presented high genetic correlations (0.53-0.86) with all performance traits. Conversely, the remaining FB traits presented null to moderate genetic correlations with these traits, ranging from -0.38 to 0.42 for growth traits and between -0.14 and 0.25 for FE traits. Genetic selection for favorable feeding behavior is expected to exhibit a fast genetic response. The results suggest that it is possible to consider different feeding strategies without compromising the genetic progress of FE. Conversely, breeding strategies prioritizing a higher bird activity might result in lighter broiler lines in the long term, given the negative genetic correlations between visit-related traits (NV, NVF, and NMEAL) and growth traits (SBW and FBW).