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Icelandic horses with the Silver coat colour show altered behaviour in a fear reaction test
Contributor(s):: Brunberg, Emma, Gille, Sanna, Mikko, Sofia, Lindgren, Gabriella, Keeling, Linda J.
The colour of a horse's coat has long been discussed to reflect its temperament. One opinion is that Silver coloured horses are nervous, difficult to handle and react more strongly to different fear stimuli. The objective with the present study was to investigate if mutations associated with the...
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I like my dog, does my dog like me?
Contributor(s):: Rehn, Therese, Lindholm, Ulrika, Keeling, Linda, Forkman, Björn
In this study, the possibility of there being an association between how an owner perceives his/her relationship to their dog and the way the dog experiences the relationship to its owner was investigated using two well-established methods within the anthrozoology literature. Twenty dog–owner...
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Extensive human presence at an early age of ostriches improves the docility of birds at a later stage of life
Contributor(s):: Bonato, Maud, Malecki, Irek A., Wang, Magretha D., Cloete, Schalk W. P.
While ostriches are relatively wild birds with a short period of domestication, some birds demonstrate a strong interest in humans. Human imprinting of chicks could therefore facilitate the cooperation of birds for assisted reproduction technology purposes, improving the quality of human–bird...
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Efficacy of foraging enrichments to increase foraging time in Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus erithacus)
Contributor(s):: van Zeeland, Yvonne R. A., Schoemaker, Nico J., Ravesteijn, Manon M., Mol, Marjon, Lumeij, Johannes T.
Foraging enrichment is considered one of the most effective strategies to improve welfare and reduce stereotypies and other abnormal repetitive behaviours in captive animals, including parrots. Few studies, however, have investigated the effects of the different types of enrichment and determined...
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Effects of signalled reward type, food status and a μ-opioid receptor antagonist on cue-induced anticipatory behaviour in laying hens (Gallus domesticus)
Contributor(s):: Moe, Randi Oppermann, Nordgreen, Janicke, Janczak, Andrew M., Spruijt, Berry M., Bakken, Morten
Studies using classical conditioning have shown that hens display high frequencies of dopamine-controlled cue-induced anticipatory behaviours in the cue-reward interval when signalling mealworm rewards. However, it is not known whether anticipatory behaviours are reward specific, and whether the...
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The effect of dog–human interaction on cortisol and behavior in registered animal-assisted activity dogs
Contributor(s):: Ng, Zenithson Y., Pierce, Bess J., Otto, Cynthia M., Buechner-Maxwell, Virginia A., Siracusa, Carlo, Werre, Stephen R.
The effect of animal-assisted activities (AAA) on the animal participants has been minimally investigated, and the welfare of these animals has been questioned. To enhance our understanding of these animals’ welfare, we measured cortisol collected from serial saliva samples of 15 healthy adult...
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Does nest size matter to laying hens?
Contributor(s):: Ringgenberg, Nadine, Fröhlich, Ernst K. F., Harlander-Matauschek, Alexandra, Würbel, Hanno, Roth, Beatrice A.
Laying hens in loose housing systems have access to group-nests which provide space for several hens at a time to lay their eggs. They are thus rather large and the trend in the industry is to further increase the size of these nests. Though practicality is important for the producer, group-nests...
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Do rubber rings coated with lignocaine reduce the pain associated with ring castration of lambs?
Contributor(s):: Stewart, Mairi, Beausoleil, Ngaio J., Johnson, Craig B., Webster, James R., Schütz, Karin E., Cox, Neil, Stafford, Kevin J.
To facilitate the wider use of pain relief on-farm, practical ‘farmer friendly’ methods for administering pain relief are necessary. This proof of concept study evaluated the efficacy of rubber rings coated with local anaesthetic (LA, lignocaine) for providing pain relief in lambs castrated 4...
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Using judgement bias to measure positive affective state in dogs
Contributor(s):: Burman, Oliver, McGowan, Ragen, Mendl, Michael, Norling, Yezica, Paul, Elizabeth, Rehn, Therese, Keeling, Linda
Interest in the induction and measurement of positive affective states in non-human animals is increasing. Here, we used a test of cognitive (judgement) bias, based on the finding that individuals experiencing different affective states judge ambiguous stimuli differently, to measure whether a...
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Use of video system and its effects on abnormal behaviour in captive Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata)
Contributor(s):: Ogura, Tadatoshi
Although nonhuman primates have highly developed visual cognitive abilities, they have few opportunities to exert such abilities in captivity. Video presentation can reproduce multiple features of the complex, real, visual world. Therefore, video presentation can be expected to act as...
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Unpredictable mild stressors on laying females influence the composition of Japanese quail eggs and offspring's phenotype
Contributor(s):: Guibert, Floriane, Richard-Yris, Marie-Annick, Lumineau, Sophie, Kotrschal, Kurt, Bertin, Aline, Petton, Christophe, Möstl, Erich, Houdelier, Cécilia
Maternal stress effects on offspring development have been studied largely in rodents and primates, and to a lesser extent in farm animals. Potential lack of knowledge concerning prenatal stress on farm animals is regrettable because they are frequently subjected to a variety of husbandry...
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Stress and stress reduction in common marmosets
Contributor(s):: Kaplan, Gisela, Pines, Mathew K., Rogers, Lesley J.
Surprisingly few studies have measured cortisol levels in captive primates using samples collected during everyday life to gauge which activities and circumstances might induce or reduce stress. Much of what is behaviourally identifiable as stress may not to be reflected in physiological stress,...
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Social dimension of emotions and its implication for animal welfare
Contributor(s):: Špinka, Marek
Animal emotions are central to the concept of animal welfare. So far, emotions have been investigated in animal welfare science as within-individual phenomena, i.e. coordinating mechanisms that guide the animal to take appropriate action. However, emotions include an important social dimension....
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Simply a nest? Effects of different enrichments on stereotypic and anxiety-related behaviour in mice
Contributor(s):: Gross, Alexandra Nam-Mi, Engel, Anna Katarina Julia, Würbel, Hanno
Improving the home cages of laboratory mice by environmental enrichment has been widely used to reduce cage stereotypies and anxiety-related behaviour in behavioural tests. However, enrichment studies differ substantially in type, complexity and variation of enrichments. Therefore, it is unclear...
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Sheep exhibit a positive judgement bias and stress-induced hyperthermia following shearing
Contributor(s):: Sanger, Maree E., Doyle, Rebecca E., Hinch, Geoff N., Lee, Caroline
The detection of judgement biases may improve welfare evaluations by measuring the cognitive component, particularly the valence, of affective states. Judgement biases have been successfully demonstrated in various laboratory animals but only recently in sheep. Chronic stressors have been found...
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Review of wallowing in pigs: Description of the behaviour and its motivational basis
Contributor(s):: Bracke, M. B. M.
Wallowing, i.e. coating the body surface with mud, is a natural behaviour of pigs, commonly observed in feral pigs and wild boar, but rarely provided for in current housing systems for domestic pigs. Furthermore, in welfare science the subject has not been receiving much attention. This paper...
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A review of pain assessment techniques and pharmacological approaches to pain relief after bovine castration: Practical implications for cattle production within the United States
Contributor(s):: Coetzee, Johann F.
Castration of male calves destined for beef production is a common livestock management practice in the United States amounting to approximately 7 million procedures per year. Recently there has been renewed interest in identifying methods to reduce pain associated with dehorning and castration....
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Regurgitation and reingestion in bonobos (Pan paniscus): Relationships between abnormal and social behavior
Contributor(s):: Miller, Lance J., Tobey, Jennifer R.
Regurgitation and reingestion (R/R) is an abnormal behavior observed in great apes analogous to rumination syndrome in humans. A majority of the research on R/R in non-human primates has focused on gorillas and chimpanzees with little information relating to other species that also engage in this...
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Regrouping rabbit does in a familiar or novel pen: Effects on agonistic behaviour, injuries and core body temperature
Contributor(s):: Graf, Sylvia, Bigler, Lotti, Failing, Klaus, Würbel, Hanno, Buchwalder, Theres
Regrouping female rabbits in group-housing systems is common management practice in rabbit breeding, which may, however, induce agonistic interactions resulting in social stress and severe injuries. Here we compared two methods of regrouping female rabbits with respect to their effects on...
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Preference of dairy cows: Indoor cubicle housing with access to a total mixed ration vs. access to pasture
Contributor(s):: Charlton, Gemma L., Rutter, Steven Mark, East, Martyn, Sinclair, Liam A.
Cattle are grazing animals so it is generally assumed that pasture is a welfare friendly system as it is natural and allows the expression of normal behaviour, which may be restricted indoors. However, high yielding dairy cows may not be able to fulfil their nutritional demands from grass alone...
