The Use of a "Go/Go" Cognitive Bias Task and Response to a Novel Object to Assess the Effect of Housing Enrichment in Sheep (Ovis aries).
J Appl Anim Welf Sci
; 25(1): 62-74, 2022.
Article
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| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33054369
ABSTRACT
It is widely acknowledged that environmental enrichment can improve animals' welfare and emotional state. This study used cognitive bias and response to a novel object to assess the effect of enriched housing on emotional state in sheep. Eighteen sheep were trained to discriminate between high-quality and low-quality reward locations using a go/go task. Sheep were allocated to a housing treatment (enriched or standard) for three weeks. Judgment bias tests were conducted using three ambiguous, unrewarded locations across three days, followed by assessing responses to a novel object. Effects of anxiety levels shown in training on responses to ambiguous locations and to the presence of a novel object were assessed. Enriched-housed sheep tended to have shorter latencies to approach ambiguous positions than standard-housed sheep (P = 0.08), particularly to the near and middle locations. Sheep from standard housing tended to have shorter latencies to approach food with the novel object present than sheep from enriched hosing (P = 0.06). This study shows that enrichment can affect emotional state and that go/go tasks can be successful in sheep and should be considered in future studies of emotional state.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Oveja Doméstica
/
Vivienda
Límite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Appl Anim Welf Sci
Asunto de la revista:
MEDICINA VETERINARIA
Año:
2022
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Reino Unido