Showing papers in "Applied Animal Behaviour Science in 2016"

TL;DR: The sheep pain facial expression scale (SPFES) was able to correctly identify sheep suffering from disease with a high degree of accuracy and identified changes in the facial expression of sheep with footrot over time.

TL;DR: The benefits and challenges documented by research, and areas where more research is needed are discussed to help design functional high tech dairy management systems that respect the natural behaviour of cows and calves during the calf rearing period.

TL;DR: The social structure of a group of 110 lactating dairy cows during four one-month periods is investigated, demonstrating that proximity loggers can be used to measure relationships between cows and demonstrating low repeatability of the social network structure.

TL;DR: In this paper, a pressure-based system (RumiWatch noseband sensor, Itin+Hoch GmbH, Liestal, Switzerland; RWS) was used to measure eating, rumination and drinking time of cows in tie-stalls.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed a fixed rating scale of qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA) for donkeys, to evaluate the inter-observer reliability when applied on-farm, and to assess whether the QBA outcomes correlate to other welfare measures.

TL;DR: The fact that the broilers used platforms to a high degree indicate that broilers are motivated to use elevated structures or driven by high animal densities, and frequent use of platforms indicates they are better suited for broilers than perches.

TL;DR: In this article, tests of tonic immobility, manual restraint (coupled with plasma corticosterone responses) and open field were applied to ISA Brown hens ( Gallus gallus domesticus : n=104) at 37-39 weeks of age.

TL;DR: Results show that cows with naturally occurring clinical mastitis exhibit signs of sickness behaviour in the days before diagnosis, and that these behaviours rapidly recover in theDays after treatment.

TL;DR: In this paper, the results of the first investigation on the use of Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA) in dairy goats, using a fixed-list of descriptors specifically developed for this species, were reported.

TL;DR: The overall percent of time spent performing active behaviors was lower when subjects were housed under blue light compared to red, and concentrations of the timekeeping hormone melatonin in the saliva of the aye-aye were significantly lower.

TL;DR: Geckos spent more time interacting with Thermal and Feeding enrichment than the other types (F(4,60) = 49.84, p), and geckos interacted with all five types of enrichment at above-chance levels (i.e., no 95% CIs for engagement time overlapped with 0 s).

TL;DR: A principal components analysis on the behaviours performed by 60 captive chimpanzees found that those chimpanzees that were mother-reared showed higher rates of coprophagy than those that were human reared, and there was a significant positive correlation between time spent with conspecifics during the first four years of life and the rate ofcoprophagy performed by the subjects as adults.

TL;DR: For rainbow trout environmental enrichment appears to promote recovery and ameliorate adverse effects following a stressor, however, recovery rate did not differ between environments in the pain treatment groups, suggesting environmental enrichment may not be an important factor when the fish is responding to a painful stimulus.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors focused on four reliable welfare indicators (presence of wounds, stereotypic/abnormal repetitive behaviours, ear position and depressed-like posture) and recorded sixteen intrinsic (e.g. sex, age, type) and extrinsic (housing, feeding, social and working conditions) factors of impact.

TL;DR: Whether and how on-farm QBA of sheep varies over the different seasons of the year, and whether it is associated with physical measures of sheep health and welfare such as lameness are investigated.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated the need for clear and simple indicators of sickness in horses, a species in which suffering is largely underestimated, and a critical review of existing tools available to assess sickness in equids, which include composite pain scales and scores and welfare assessment scoring.

TL;DR: Whether and when there might be a direct advantage in using the clicker method over other secondary or primary reinforcers to model dogs’ behaviour is discussed.

TL;DR: Results are comparable to those reported in laboratory rat models and to some extent to those recently reported in dog literature, highlighting the importance of maternal care on the behavioural development of domestic dog puppies.

TL;DR: Automated measures of lying time may be a useful animal-based measure to indicate farms with a high percentage of lame cows or cows with leg lesions to identify cows and farms with problems of lameness or leg lesions.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated program animal welfare using both behavioral and physiological measures in two separate experiments and found no effect of handling specifically for education programs on measures of welfare in Experiment Two ( p > 0.05 in all FGM and undesirable behavior models).

TL;DR: Infra-red video recordings were used to perform all-occurrences sampling of locomotive behavioural and perching events that occurred on the ground—where bedding material, food and water were provided, in the air, and on elevated horizontal and inclined surfaces within weekly 30-min sampling periods.

TL;DR: In this article, a study was conducted to test whether the motivational significance of food enrichment differentially affects activity, litter-directed behaviors and fearfulness in broiler chickens, and the results showed that mealworm treatment induced a significant increase in activity and litter pecking and litter scratching.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that the farrowing system design can influence sow behaviour, with pens allowing for more interactions between sows and their piglets.

TL;DR: At the first 15 days after regrouping, pigs housed at 1.2m 2 per animal had decreased housing costs and improved indicators of animal welfare compared to those housed at 0.8m 2 .

TL;DR: MGS score significantly increases following vasectomy in CBA mice and buprenorphine does not prevent pain associated changes in behaviour.

TL;DR: The argument that well-designed zoo exhibits can be effective in removing the potentially negative effects of large crowds is supported, with a slight effect of crowd size on self-directed behaviors in both species.

TL;DR: Qualitative Behaviour Assessment was utilised to examine the behavioural expression of dogs in different housing environments and the results were compared to measurements of quantitative behaviour and physiology.

TL;DR: Physical activity levels of four different strains of laying hens are measured throughout three age classes using tri-axial accelerometers to predict low- (e.g. small postural movements), moderate- and high- intensity physical activity with 98% accuracy (verified using video recordings).

TL;DR: This study is the first to show an impact of ALAN on the behaviour of an invasive, non-native species, and provides information for the management of invasive crayfish in areas where ALAN is prevalent, and confirms that signal cray Fish are largely nocturnal, showing peak activity and interaction levels during control nights, whilst taking refuge during daylight hours.