Supplemental data for: Holding on or heading up? The roosting preferences of laying hen pullets: A traditional and modelling approach

The Roosting Preferences of Laying Hen Pullets: A Traditional and Modelling Approach". The purpose of this research was to determine whether laying hen pullets of different strains would prefer to roost on a structure that allows their toes to wrap versus a structure that is more elevated.

We also investigated the association between the pullets' foot length and their use of perches versus platforms within their housing system. Finally, we recreated this observational data using a mechanistic model that described the pullets' movement between the floor, the ramps, and the roosting structures and used the solved equations to support our observational findings. Observational data was analyzed using SAS Proc GLIMMIX, and the mechanistic model's differential equations were iterated and solved using a python code.