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Does 'playtime' reduce stimulus-seeking and other boredom-like behaviour in laboratory ferrets?
Contributor(s):: Burn, C. C., Raffle, J., Bizley, J. K.
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Does Enrichment Improve Well Being in Animals under Human Care? A Case Study of Two Harbor Seals (Phoca Vitulina)
Contributor(s):: Vaicekauskaite, Ruta, Schneider, Jennifer N., Delfour, Fabienne
Harbor seals in the wild live in a stimulating environment; therefore, nonhuman-animal caretakers have increasingly been using environmental enrichment to improve the well being of seals under human care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an object-based environmental enrichment program...
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Does environmental enrichment affect the behaviour of fish commonly used in laboratory work? (Special Issue: Animal suffering and welfare.)
Contributor(s):: Brydges, N. M., Braithwaite, V. A.
Housing conditions can have significant effects on the behaviour and physiology of captive animals. Enriching barren environments, for example by providing structural complexity or companionship, are generally considered beneficial as they can decrease the occurrence of abnormal behaviours and...
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Does group size have an impact on welfare indicators in fattening pigs?
Contributor(s):: Meyer-Hamme, S. E. K., Lambertz, C., Gauly, M.
Production systems for fattening pigs have been characterized over the last 2 decades by rising farm sizes coupled with increasing group sizes. These developments resulted in a serious public discussion regarding animal welfare and health in these intensive production systems. Even though large...
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Does grouping environmental enrichments together affect the way they are used by commercially housed broiler chickens?
Contributor(s):: Baxter, Mary, O’Connell, Niamh E.
Identifying the most attractive ways of presenting environmental enrichments in commercial broiler housing may encourage use and optimise their effectiveness. This study investigated the effect of grouping straw bales (SB), oat hulls (OH; as a dustbathing substrate) and pecking chain (Pe)...
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Does simple feeding enrichment raise activity levels of captive ring-tailed lemurs ( Lemur catta )?
Contributor(s):: Dishman, D. L., Thomson, D. M., Karnovsky, N. J.
Feeding enrichment is a commonly proposed way to promote natural behavior, greater activity levels and improved health in captive primates, but in many cases the methods have not been formally tested, especially for particular groups such as lemurs. We investigated whether simple changes in food...
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Does the location of enrichment material affect behavior and dirtiness in growing female pigs?
Contributor(s):: Dalmau, Antoni, Areal, Bruno, Machado, Silvana, Pallisera, Joaquim, Velarde, Antonio
The objective of this study was to investigate if female growing pigs spend similar amounts of time exploring a wooden stick as they do exploring enrichment material regardless of its proximity to the feeder. Forty-eight pigs aged 18 to 26 weeks allocated to 16 pens with three pigs per pen were...
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Dynamics of the access of captive domestic cats to a feed environmental enrichment item
Contributor(s):: Damasceno, Juliana, Genaro, Gelson
Providing feed enrichment to captive felids that are obligate carnivores is crucial for eliciting natural hunting behaviours. However, studies of the efficacy of enrichment techniques usually analyse the whole group, overlooking the different behaviours of individual animals towards the enriched...
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Early environmental enrichment protects captive-born striped mice against the later development of stereotypic behaviour
Contributor(s):: Jones, Megan Anne, Mason, Georgia, Pillay, Neville
Understanding how birth origin (whether born in the wild or captivity) influences behavioural development is important for fundamental and applied ethology, especially when captive-bred (CB) individuals from wild species are used in research or conservation. CB animals are typically much more...
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Early social experience influences the development of stereotypic behaviour in captive-born striped mice Rhabdomys
Contributor(s):: Jones, M. A., Mason, G., Pillay, N.
The early life experience of captive animals, in combination with their genetic inheritance, can predispose or promote the development of stereotypic behaviour in later life. To investigate the early social effects of weaning age and the presence/absence of the father on the development of...
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Editorial: Advances and Perspectives in Farm Animal Learning and Cognition
| Contributor(s):: Nawroth, C., Langbein, J.
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Effect of a partial cage dividing enrichment on aggression-associated parameters in group-housed male C57BL/6NCrl mice
| Contributor(s):: Mertens, Sinja, Gass, Peter, Palme, Rupert, Hiebl, Bernhard, Chourbaji, Sabine
Group-housing is highly important for social animals. Group-housing of male mice in captivity though often leads to aggression with partially disastrous consequences for the animals as well as for the quality of experimental data. In this study we investigated the effect of a novel...
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Effect of a stimulating environment during the socialization period on the performance of adult police working dogs
| Contributor(s):: Lopes, B., Alves, J., Santos, A., Pereira, G. da G.
The aim of this study was to determine if using a stimulating enrichment park environment during the socialization period of police working dogs improved social skills. Our intent was to learn whether such exposure could maximize working dog performance in future situations as adults. Six...
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Effect of an open window and conspecifics within view on the welfare of stabled horses, estimated on the basis of positive and negative behavioural indicators
| Contributor(s):: Ninomiya, S., Kusunose, R., Obara, Y., Sato, S.
The effect of environmental enrichment on the welfare of stabled horses was estimated on the basis of positive and negative behavioural indicators. Six stabled horses were exposed for seven days to each of two conditions in early spring: (i) a window at the back of the loose box was opened, but...
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Effect of captivity and management on behaviour of the domestic ferret (Mustela putorius furo)
| Contributor(s):: Talbot, Sarah, Freire, Rafael, Wassens, Skye
The domestic ferret (Mustela putorius furo) is becoming an increasingly popular companion animal in Australia and overseas yet very little is currently known about the effects of different management factors (such as housing and enrichment) on domestic ferret behaviour and welfare. Hence, the...
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Effect of environmental enrichment and breed line on the incidence of belly nosing in piglets weaned at 7 and 14 days-of-age
| Contributor(s):: Bench, C. J., Gonyou, H. W.
The effect of enrichment and breed line on belly nosing in early-weaned pigs was investigated over two studies. In a preliminary study, 291 piglets were weaned at 7 days-of-age and observed over two consecutive days (pigs ranged from 17 to 30 days-of-age at time of observation). Piglets were fed...
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Effect of feed and environmental enrichment on development of stereotypic wire-gnawing in laboratory mice
| Contributor(s):: Wurbel, H., Chapman, R., Rutland, C.
At 21 days of age, 16 pairs of male ICR laboratory mice were weaned and allocated to 4 treatment groups in a 2 x 2 factorial design matched for genetic background (litter) and body weight. Factor one was the hardness of feed pellets with a significant 2.5-fold difference between soft and hard...
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Effects of a running wheel-igloo enrichment on aggression, hierarchy linearity, and stereotypy in group-housed male CD-1 (ICR) mice
| Contributor(s):: Howerton, C. L., Garner, J. P., Mench, J. A.
Environmental enrichment is an important strategy to improve the welfare of laboratory animals. Running wheels might serve as enrichment devices for laboratory mice, since mice use them extensively when they are provided. However, competition among group-housed mice for such highly preferred...
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Effects of access to extra cage constructions including a swimming opportunity on the development of stereotypic behaviour in singly housed juvenile farmed mink (Neovison vison)
| Contributor(s):: Ahola, Leena, Mononen, Jaakko, Mohaibes, Maarit
The aim of the study was to find out whether an access to extra cage constructions including either a 180l pool (SP group) or a pool-sized extra cage (0.61m2) (EC group) would slow down the development of stereotypic behaviour in singly housed farmed mink (Neovison vison). Mink housed in...
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Effects of an Enhanced Human Interaction Program on shelter dogs' behaviour analysed using a novel nonparametric test
| Contributor(s):: Normando, S., Corain, L., Salvadoretti, M., Meers, L., Valsecchi, P.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of introduction and interruption of an Enhanced Human Interaction Program (EHIP) on shelter dogs' behaviour and welfare and to apply a novel statistical method to analyse the behavioural data. Twenty-two dogs, which were never subjected to...
