Applied Animal Behaviour Science最新文献

Santa Ines and Dorper sheep are the most popular breeds in the Brazilian semi-arid region. The former is of local origin and less intensively selected for productivity, and the latter is an introduced exotic breed selected for meat production. Dorper lambs are heavier at birth than Santa Ines lambs, which might increase the need for birth assistance, negatively influencing the newborn and maternal behaviours. Dorper lambs grow faster, most likely influencing their behavioural strategies during lactation, depending less on their mother than Santa Ines lambs. The aim of this study was to compare the behaviours of Santa Ines and Dorper ewes and their lambs at birth and throughout lactation. A complementary aim was to determine if being single or twin lambs impact differently according to the breed. Twenty-five Santa Ines ewes and their 32 lambs (18 single and 14 twins) and 21 Dorper ewes and their 26 lambs (16 single and 10 twins) were used in the study. Mother-offspring behaviours were recorded from birth until 63 days after lambing. Dorper ewes had a greater incidence of dystocia (P = 0.02) and longer labour (P = 0.0001) than Santa Ines ewes. At birth, Santa Ines ewes displayed a greater frequency of low-pitched bleats (P = 0.0006) and tended to spend more time grooming their lambs than Dorper ewes (P = 0.07). Immediately after birth, Santa Ines lambs shook their head earlier than Dorper lambs (P = 0.003). The litter size effects were unrelated to the breed: ewes of single deliveries groomed their lambs earlier (P = 0.04), and those that delivered twins spent more time grooming the first lamb delivered (P = 0.01). Over the first two weeks after parturition, Santa Ines ewes displayed higher frequencies of head-up postures (P = 0.0001), high-pitched bleats (P = 0.02) and smelled their lambs more times (P = 0.0001) than Dorper ewes. Santa Ines lambs were closer to their mother when grazing (P = 0.0001), while Dorper lambs were closer to their mother when lying down (P = 0.049). In conclusion, Santa Ines sheep shows a stronger ewe-lamb bond than Dorper soon after parturition, and such differences persist at least until 9 weeks after lambing. The ewe-lamb bond was weaker in twin than single lambs, without differences in the degree of its strength between Santa Ines and Dorper sheep.

Individual human recognition is important for species that live in close proximity to humans. Numerous studies on domesticated species and urban-adapted birds have highlighted this ability. One such species which is heavily reliant on humans is the free-ranging dog. Very little knowledge exists on the amount of time taken by free-ranging dogs to learn and remember individual humans. Due to their territorial nature, they have a high probability of encountering the same people multiple times on the streets. Being able to distinguish individual humans might be helpful in making decisions regarding people from whom to beg for food or social reward. We investigated if free-ranging dogs are capable of identifying the person rewarding them and the amount of time required for them to learn it. We conducted field trials on randomly selected adult free-ranging dogs in West Bengal, India. On Day 1, a choice test was conducted. The experimenter chosen did not provide reward while the other experimenter provided a piece of boiled chicken followed by petting. The person giving reward on Day 1 served as the correct choice on four subsequent days of training. Day 6 was the test day when none of the experimenters had a reward. We analyzed the choice made by the dogs, the time taken to approach during the choice tests, and the socialization index, which was calculated based on the intensity of affiliative behaviour shown towards the experimenters. The dogs made correct choices at a significantly higher rate on the fifth and sixth days, as compared to Day 2, suggesting learning. This is the first study aiming to understand the time taken for individual human recognition in free-ranging dogs, and can serve as the scaffold for future studies to understand the dog-human relationship in open environments, like urban ecosystems.

The time spent lying down and ruminating are important behaviours that could be used for dairy cows’ health assessment. This systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the alterations in lying time (LT) and rumination time (RT) and their effectiveness for the detection of subclinical ketosis (SCK), metritis, and hypocalcaemia in dairy cows during the periparturient period. Each disease was subjected to meta-analysis, with the LT and RT of healthy and diseased groups, measured before and after calving. Random effects were reported for 45 trials from 19 studies and the effect size was measured as the mean difference (MD). Heterogeneity and publication bias were evaluated using the I² statistic, and Egger’s test, respectively. Regarding SCK and metritis, the MD of LT was similar between the healthy and diseased groups in the pre-partum and post-partum (P > 0.05). Meanwhile, the MD of RT was significantly different in both periods (MD = −61.76 and −73.33 min/day, P < 0.05) for SCK and during the prepartum for metritis (MD = −23.37 min/day, P = 0.04). For hypocalcaemia, while LT only differed between the healthy and diseased cows in the post-partum, the MD of RT differed significantly between both groups in pre-partum (MD = −13.02 min/day, P < 0.001) and post-partum (MD = 21.53 min/day, P = 0.04) periods. Egger’s test for publication biases was not significant for most outcomes of interest. Meta-regression depicted a lower predicted value for MD in the LT from pasture-based cows and RT from primiparous compared to free-stalls and primiparous cows, respectively. Our findings reflect that RT is a superior behavioural attribute to LT for the early detection of SCK and hypocalcaemia during the periparturient period. Systematic assessment of RT may assist farmers to identify and categorise cows into risk groups and interventions can be performed before the onset of clinical disease.

While the benefits of pair housing have been well documented, less is known about increasing success in adult male macaque pair introductions. In this retrospective study, 95 unfamiliar adult male macaque (Macaca mulatta) pairs were examined to determine whether duration of visual contact, behavior, age, and weight were associated with success rate, with “success” defined as two weeks in full tactile contact without excessive behavioral indicators of incompatibility or injury requiring clinical treatment or care. Overall, the unfamiliar adult male pairs achieved a success rate of 72 % and wounding requiring medical attention was rare (2 %). A significant negative relationship between pair success and time in visual contact for pairs was found. Pairs who moved into tactile contact within 48-hours showed more positive social behaviors in protected and full contact and had a high rate of success (91 %), while those who exhibited negative social behaviors were maintained in visual contact for longer. Nevertheless, rapid signs of compatibility were not necessary for the formation of successful pairs. While social introduction success rates steadily declined with increased periods of maintained visual contact, longer durations of 3 days to 1 week (70 %), and 8+ days (58 %), were still accompanied by high to moderate success, respectively. These results indicate that when negative social behavior is present early in visual contact success may be expected to decrease, but it is not necessarily indicative of incompatibility. Providing extra time in visual contact can reduce overall incidences of single housing.

Consumers’ awareness of animal welfare in farm animal husbandry – including laying hen systems – increased in the last few decades. As a result, more and more farmers in Austria changed from barn systems to free-range husbandry. However, lack of structure and protective cover in the outdoor area might cause poor use of major parts of the outdoor range. Since the ancestor of domestic chicken – the red junglefowl – inhabits dense jungle forests with manifold ground vegetation, the structural design of an outdoor area might be of high importance for laying hens. To examine this assumption, a 15×15 m grid of barrier tape was brought out on the ground of the outdoor ranges of two commercial free-range laying hen farms that differed in the amount of vegetation cover they provided. Using action cams, we took pictures of each quadrant in ten-minute intervals from 09:00 h to 21:00 h for a total of three full days. We ran GAMs for each farm separately with number of hens per quadrant and interval as dependent variable, and vegetation cover (yes/no) and position (edge/centre) of the quadrant, distance to the shed (in m), as well as temperature (in °C) as predictors. Date, time, and quadrant ID were included as smooth terms. We found a more even and widespread use of space of hens on the outdoor range with a large amount of vegetation cover (farm 1) compared to the range with a small amount of vegetation cover (farm 2). However, the number of hens decreased with increasing distance to the shed on both farms. Hens preferred edge over centre quadrants on the range of farm 1, but preferred centred quadrants with vegetation cover over those without cover on the range of farm 2. On the ranges of both farms, the number of hens decreased with increasing temperature on quadrants without vegetation cover, whereas no such effect was found for covered quadrants. These findings suggest vegetation cover to be a key factor for extensive range use, particularly in view of the expected increase in temperature due to climate change. Therefore, we recommend farmers to provide hens with highly structured outdoor ranges, not only to improve range use but also to offer hens a more species-appropriate environment, which is assumed to increase the hens’ welfare as well.

COVID-19 changed our lives in many aspects. Among the most spectacular changes was probably the mandatory wearing of masks, which was proven to negatively influence human social interactions and communication. The various COVID protocols, however, not only affected humans but also had a huge impact on companion animals, such as dogs, living in human society. For example, it is particularly alarming, that throughout the pandemic the number of registered dog bites increased significantly. The phenomenon has been explained by the generally elevated stress level as well as family members and dogs spending more time together in restricted closed space. On the other hand, the communication deficit caused by the constant usage of masks cannot be ruled out as a further contributing factor. In the current study, we aim to test the effect of human’s mask wearing on dog’s behaviour in a range of situation. To this end we used previously validated standard test situations (responsiveness to human pointing, basic obedience, spontaneous following, emotion recognition, threatening approach) in which the human experimenter was present either with or without wearing a mask. N=21 family dogs were tested in a within subject design, with a minimum of 3-day difference between the two occasions. Tests were carried out in different randomized sequences for each subject to eliminate the order effect. The order of the masked and maskless occasions was randomized as well. We found that the mask-wearing of the experimenter did not influence dogs' performance in cognitive tests (responsiveness to human pointing, basic obedience, spontaneous following, emotion recognition; all p>0.05). The only significant difference observed was in dogs' reactions to the masked versus non-masked experimenter during the threatening approach situation. Reaction scores were coded on a 1–5 scale, ranging from friendly to aggressive. The number of more aggressive responses was significantly higher for the masked experimenter compared to the non-masked. These results have two important implications. First, it seems that (at least in the situations investigated) dogs' cognitive performance is not affected by the experimenter’s mask wearing, supporting the notion that research conducted during COVID protocols enforcing mask-wearing remains valid. Second, and perhaps more importantly, dogs seem to react with more aggression towards unfamiliar people wearing masks in ambivalent situations. Therefore, special attention needs to be devoted to dog attacks when these regulations are in place. Further research should address additional factors, such as the familiarity of the interacting (masked) human.

Vocal communication serves as an important mode of interaction among animals. The quantitative analysis of acoustic signals holds scientific value in highlighting the importance of understanding the social-ecological contexts and their effects on acoustic communication. The results can provide a direct scientific guidance for enhancing the welfare and management of captive animals. From January to February 2022 and from December 2022 to February 2023, we conducted a study involving 30 captive François' langurs (Trachypithecus francoisi) housed in nine enclosures. We collected acoustic signals along with their associated social-ecological contexts and recorded the social composition and number of François' langurs in each enclosure. We in total identified 23 call types based on human ear auditory, spectrogram visual inspection, and quantitative analysis of 37 acoustic parameters. Our findings revealed that adult males exhibited nine call types (five adult male-specific types), adult females 11 call types (seven adult female-specific types), juveniles eight call types (two juvenile-specific types), and infants five call types (two infant-specific types). The asymmetry in call types indicated distinct social roles among different sex-age classes of François' langurs. We found that a complex social composition or larger group size resulted in a more diverse range of call types and increased utterance frequency among François' langurs. The increased utterance frequency was linked to calls used in neutral (contact), affiliation, mating, and vigilance contexts, indicating that a diverse social setting encourages social interaction and boosts the occurrence of natural behaviors, and may also result in increased tension and anxiety. Implementing a one-male multi-female model with ample breeding space for captive François' langurs was identified as beneficial for enhancing vocal communication and improving animal welfare. This study established the first vocal repertoire of François' langurs, offering a novel scientific approach to evaluating the welfare of this endangered species through vocal behaviors.

Poisonous plants are an integral part of many pastures destined for horses around the world. However, fundamental knowledge of the role of horses’ senses in discriminating these plants is still lacking. It is, therefore, of interest to study whether, besides sight, the olfaction used by animals before ingesting may prevent them eating a poisonous plant. The aim of the study was to determine whether stabled horses are capable of distinguishing poisonous plants solely by odour among the unfamiliar plants presented. Twenty adult warmblood mares and geldings were involved in the study. The novel plants presented for exploration by the horses were three poisonous species: Taxus baccata, Buxus sempervirens and Thuja occidentalis, as well as three non-poisonous species: Petroselinum crispum, Anethum graveolens and Eruca sativa. Each plant was presented in a small box for one minute on three days, two plants daily. The plants were unavailable to see or touch by the horses and only smell was perceptible. The horses were habituated and positively conditioned to approach the box. The intensity of exploration was measured by the number of exploration events, total exploration time and occurrence of additional behaviours, such as chewing. The method used made it possible to exclude other senses than smell and a previous experience with the plants tested from the analysis. The time of exploration in subsequent trials was found to be shortened (9.0, 5.5, 3.0 s for poisonous plants and 14.5, 7.0, 5.5 s for non-poisonous plants). The differences in the time spent exploring boxes with different plants show that horses discriminate new odours individually and undertake increased olfactory behaviours when encountering a novel odour. The horses spent significantly more time exploring non-poisonous than poisonous plants (7.0 and 5.0 s, respectively). They were also chewing and licking the crib notably more often when non-poisonous plants were presented compared to poisonous plants (0.24 and 0.13 versus 0.15 and 0.08, respectively). The shortened and weaker exploration in the case of poisonous plants may indicate that these plants caused a reluctance in the horses. Hence, our findings suggest that the horses’ sense of smell has some potential for differentiating poisonous from non-poisonous plants independently of the sense of taste, touch and sight.

The study of temperament of the order Psittaciformes has been expanding over the past decades due to the publication of papers investigating individual differences in various species. This review aimed to integrate studies on the temperament of Psittaciformes in a systematized manner, focusing on methodological aspects. It also aimed to reveal the main dimensions of temperament described for these species, identify possible gaps and suggest new themes that deserve the scientific community’s attention. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology was followed, and the search was conducted using Population, Intervention, and Context (PICo) terms. Three databases were used (Scopus, Web of Science, and CABI), resulting in a total of 24 publications included. The most used term to express consistent interindividual behavioral differences was ‘personality’ (11; 45.83 %), followed by ‘temperament’ (8; 33.33 %), without a clear distinction of both in this research field. Studies on temperament were conducted within the families Psittacidae (18; 75 %), Psittaculidae (4; 16.67 %) and Cacatuidae (2; 8.33 %), with the genus Amazona being the most investigated (14; 58.33 %). Regarding context, all papers used animals under human care (kept in captive environments). In total, 22 temperament dimensions were compiled, with ‘boldness’ (or ‘shy-bold’ axis or ‘shyness-boldness’), ‘neophobia/neophilia’, ‘exploration’, and ‘vigilance’ being the most common. Quantitative methods of assessment (coding) were more commonly applied, being used in 19 (79.17 %) publications, compared to qualitative ones (rating methods). Among the factors related to temperament, pre- and post-release behavior was the most investigated (5; 20.83 %). We could conclude that studies were concentrated on a few taxonomic groups, highlighting the need to broaden the subjects studied, including other families, genera, and species. Furthermore, it would be interesting to expand the temperament evaluations into wild contexts to better understand consistent interindividual differences in parrots’ natural behaviors. More efforts should be directed towards methodological and conceptual standardization, in addition to applying temporal consistency analyses. Some additional gaps that have not been studied yet include research on the genetic basis, as well as morphophysiological and neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying temperament in Psittaciformes.

Provision of rooting material is important to meet the pig`s need for exploration when housed inside. In this experiment we investigated the effects of different types of rooting materials and a weekly rotation in different materials on behaviour and welfare of finishing pigs. We predicted that access to rooting material would lead to more positive and less negative behaviours, and a lower proportion of pigs with bite marks on ears, tail, and body.

During two batches with a total of 360 finishing pigs, with 10 pigs per pen, rooting material was provided twice a day (pellets, peat, straw, hay, weekly rotation of these materials, or controls with sawdust) over 12 weeks. Behaviour was recorded from video in the two most active periods of the day; immediately after material provision, for 60 minutes, with instantaneous scan sampling every 6 min. and 1/0 sampling. Welfare protocol data was collected in weeks 1,2,3 and 12.

Provision of rooting material resulted in more exploration (P < 0.001), play (P < 0.001) and tail wagging (P = 0.010) compared to the control group, except for pellets where exploration level was even lower than controls. Rooting material also led to less tail biting (P = 0.002) and manipulation of pen fittings (P < 0.001) compared to the control group. Straw and rotation of materials resulted in less ear biting (P < 0.001), and straw in fewer observations with the tail hanging down or tucked between the legs (P < 0.001). Aggression was not reduced (P = 0.036), and non-aggressive social contact was lower with rooting materials compared to controls (P = 0.002). Pigs provided with peat, straw, and hay had a lower proportion of bite marks on the tail (P < 0.001), whereas pellets and rotation groups were higher than controls in this respect. All rooting materials except for pellets resulted in a lower proportion of bite marks on the body compared to controls (P = 0.018). Levels of exploration, play, aggression, ear biting, tail curled, wagging and hanging down (P < 0.001), and tail biting (P = 0.052), were all higher in the first weeks of the experiment and declined with increasing age. Groups with a weekly rotation in materials showed the highest level of exploration throughout the experimental period (P < 0.001).

Our results suggest that straw and hay are highly valued as resources for finishing pigs, and material rotation is the most stimulating.