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Nordic ISAE 2008

Proceedings of the 18th Nordic Symposium of the International Society for Applied Ethology 16-18 January 2008 at Oscarsborg, Norway

Oscarsborg fortress Photo: Oscarsborg Hotel

Contents

Organising Committee Knut E. Bøe, UMB

Adroaldo J. Zanella, NVH Anne Kathrine Akre, UMB Anne Lene Hovland, UMB

UMB - Norwegian University of Life Sciences NVH - Norwegian School of Veterinary Science

Proceedings of the 20th Nordic Symposium of the International Society for Applied Ethology Editors: Knut E. Bøe and Adroaldo J. Zanella Published by: Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Programme………………………………………………………...

1

Abstracts of oral presentations…………………………………….

5

Wednesday 16th January……………………………………

5

Thursday 17th January………………………………………

15

Friday 18th January…………………………………………

35

List of participants………………………………………………...

43

Programme

Page 1

Nordic ISAE 2008 Programme Wednesday 16th January 08:30 – 12:00 Meetings in Nordic

research groups

10:00 – 12:00 Arrival and registration

12:00 – 13:00 Lunch

13:00 – 13:10 Welcome 13:10 – 15:15 Topic: Behavioural needs and motivation

Chair: Margareta Rundgreen 13:10 – 13:30 Suvi Niskanen Development of social behaviour and importance

of social relations in calves 13:30 – 13:50 Tarja Koistinen Relative value of various resources to farmed blue

foxes 13:50 – 14:10 Anne Kathrine Akre Social preference in cubs and juvenile farmed

silver fox females (Vulpes Vulpes) 14:10 – 14:30

Tone Sondresen Social instability and the effects on eating and resting time in goats

14:30 – 15:00 Coffee

15:00 – 15:45 Margit Bak Jensen Invited lecture: Ethological needs and motivation

15:45 – 16:55 Topic: Free papers Chair: Helle Kristensen

15:45 – 16:05 Satu Raussi Time budget and lying synchronisation of cows in conventional and automatic milking system departments

16:05 – 16:25 Sofie Fröberg Dairy calves kept together with their dams in an automatic milking system

16:25 – 16:45

Marit Skog Eriksen Stressed mothers – troubled offspring? Preliminary results from a study of maternal effects in farmed Atlantic salmon

17:00 – 18:15 Guided tour in the fortress

19:00 - Dinner

Programme

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Thursday 17th January 08:30 – 10:15 Topic: Mating and maternal behaviour

Chair: Anne Lene Hovland 08:30 – 09:15 Tore Slagsvold Invited lecture: Mate choice and sexual

imprinting 09:15 – 09:35 Tomislav Vladic Indirect sperm selection and cryptic male choice:

lesions from fish and humans 09:35 – 09:55

Trine Jensen Late introduction of sows to the farrowing environment (pens or crates): effects on the progress of parturition and maternal behaviour

09:55 – 10:15 Lene Juul Pedersen Cross fostering of piglets in farrowing pens

10:15 – 10:35 Signe LoviseThingnes

Nursing quality in sows and piglet mortality – preliminary results on the effects of a high and low breeding value for survival rate and two different farrowing environments

10:35 – 10:55 Coffee

10:35 – 12:15 Topic: Domestication Chair: Lene Juul Pedersen

10:55 – 11:15 Anna Wirèn Domestication related genetic effects on social behaviour in chickens – a possible effect of AVPR1a

11:15 – 11:35

Per Jensen Effects of domestication on filial motivation and imprinting in chicks: comparison of red jungle fowl and White Leghorns

11:35 – 11:55 Anna-Carin Karlsson

Effects of a mutation in PMEL17 on social and exploratory behaviour in chickens – possible relations with feather pecking

11:55 – 12:15

?? ??

12:15 – 13:15 Lunch

13:15 – 15:15 Topic: Physical environment Chair: Daniel Nätt

13:15 – 13:35 Guro Vasdal Lying behaviour and space allowance for piglets subjected to different infrared temperatures

13:35 – 13:55 Helle H. Kristensen Physical exercise and home pen activity in broiler chickens

13:55 – 14:15 Lars Erik Ruud Free stall design and usage affects locomotion.

14:15 – 14:35

Katharina Graunke Behaviour and use of protection in heifers and suckler cows kept outside in the winter time in Sweden

14:35 – 14:55

Arnd. W. Bassler The effect of grass floor on the behaviour and leg condition of broilers

14:55 – 15:15 Inger Hansen Double bunks for indoor wintering sheep

15:15 – 15:35 Coffee

Programme

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15:35 – 17:15 Topic: Social behaviour Chair: Satu Raussi

15:35 – 15:55 Hege G. Tønnesen Group size and social interactions in goats

15:55 – 16:15 Elke Hartmann Evaluating social encounters between unfamiliar horses

16:15 – 16:35 Inger Lise Andersen

Agonistic behaviour in stable and unstable social groups of pregnant goats and its consequences for kid survival and development

16:35 – 16:55

Linn Borsheim Grouping horses according to sex – effects on social interactions and spacing

16:55 – 17:15

Grete H. M. Jørgensen

Group size for housed ewes

17:15 – 17:30 Margit Bak Jensen

ISAE Nordic region business

19:00 - Symposium dinner Friday 18th January 08:30 – 10:25 Topic: Stress and pain

Chair: Tarja Koistinen 08:30 – 09:15 Cara L. Wellman Invited lecture: Chronic Stress Effects in

Prefrontal Cortex: Morphology, Chemistry, and Behavior

09:15 – 09:35 Silje Kittilsen Differences in behavioural and physiological stress in farmed salmon: implications for welfare and production

09:35 – 09:55

Mariana Carvalho Circadian cortisol pattern and the impact of transportation on the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis in domestic dairy goats

09:55 – 10:15 Camilla Kielland Veterinary students attitudes of pain in cattle

10:15 – 10:35 Daniel Nätt Transmission of adaptive stress induced behaviour from parents to offspring in chickens

10:35 – 10:55 Coffee

10:55 – 12:10 Topic: Humans and animals Chair: Marit Skog Eriksen

10:55 – 11:15 Therese Rehn The effect of time left alone on dog behaviour

11:15 – 11:35

Bente Berget Effects of farm animals on adult psychiatric patients

11:35 – 11:55 Kjersti Fremstad Keeping riding horses in groups – are there really any problems with injuries and are such horses difficult to catch?

11:50 – 12:10 Closing of meeting Klaus Vestergaard prize ISAE Nordic 2009 (Denmark/Finland?)

12:10 – 13:10 Lunch

Programme

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Wednesday 16th January

Page 5

Abstracts of oral presentations Wednesday 16th January 2008

abstracts by programme sequence

Grethe Tuven IHA, UMB


Page 6

Development of social behaviour and importance of social relations in calves

Niskanen Suvi1, Raussi Satu2, Veissier Isabelle3, Kaihilahti Jutta2, Hänninen Laura4, Hepola Helena5, Jauhiainen Lauri6 1 University of Helsinki, Faculty of Biosciences, [email protected] 2 MTT Animal Production Research, Jokioinen, [email protected], [email protected] 3 INRA-Theix, Saint-Genès-Champanelle, France, [email protected] 4 University of Helsinki, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, [email protected] 5 University of Helsinki, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, [email protected] 6 MTT Services Unit, Jokioinen, [email protected] Calves tend to develop long-lasting social relations with peers of the same species. These relations are usually formed before 6 months of age and may last for several years. Calves reared together since birth show less aggressive behaviour towards each other than calves that get to know each other later. The aim of this master’s thesis was to study the development of the social behaviour of calves and to examine whether the quality of the relationship between calves affects the behaviour of the calf in stressfull situations. Twenty-four Ayshire dairy calves were born in the barns of MTT Finland from 2003 to 2005. After 2 weeks of rearing in single pens the calves were assigned to 6 groups of 4 animals of the same age. The 4 animals of the experimental group were reared together until 1.5 years of age (Type-1 partners). At the age of 14 weeks Type-1 calves were reassigned to a bigger group with other calves (Type-2). Type-3 partners were calves that were met later or totally unknown. The development of the social behaviour was examined. Social interactions were observed during 2 consecutive days for 12 hours at the age of 4, 7, 10 and 13 weeks. To find out whether the quality of the relation could be seen in synchrony, distance, proximity or nearest neighbour, the position and behaviour of animals at pasture and in barn were recorded every 10 minutes for 6 hours on 2 consecutive days in 4 periods. Social preferences of subjects between Type-1, -2 and -3 partners were examined in Y-maze and the calming effect of these various partners on subject calves in open-field test. Agonistic, affiliative and sexual behaviour as well as activity were observed. SPSS- and SAS-statistical programme, mixed models and Kruskal-Wallis test were used for analysis of the data. Calves were more aggressive towards each other at the age of 13 weeks (4) than at the age of 4 weeks (1) (p<0.05). Sexual behaviour was more common at Week 13 than at Week 4. Partner type affected proximity values (p<0.001) with Type-1 partners being close to a subject calf in 15.2% of all observations whereas values for Type-2 and Type-3 partners were 12.5% and 7.9%, respectively. There was a statistical difference between all partner types in proximity values (p≤0.025). Type-3 partners were butted more frequently than Type-1 partners both in Y-maze (1 vs. 0, p=0.05) and in open-field (9 vs. 3, p<0.05). Calves vocalized more when they were alone in open-field (p<0.001). We concluded that the preference for peers met at two weeks of age can be seen in proximity of the calves. However, calves can form stable relations at least until the age of 14 weeks. These relations reduce aggressive behaviour, activity and frequency of vocalization, and help calves to cope with new and potentially stressful situations.


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Relative value of various resources to farmed blue foxes Tarja Koistinen1, Jaakko Mononen1, Hannu T. Korhonen2 1 University of Kuopio, Department of Biosciences, Finland 2 MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Finland The wire mesh cages of farmed blue foxes (Alopex lagopus) must be furnished with a platform and an activity object (e.g. in Finland and Norway). It has been suggested that the cages should be further furnished with more space, nest box or solid floor material. Here we compared how blue foxes value these compulsory and suggested resources by measuring the maximum price paid for a platform, wooden block, extra space, nest box and sand floor.

Ten juvenile blue fox males were singly housed in test cages consisting of three traditional fox cages. The three cages were connected with four one-way doors. One door led from the middle home cage (HC) to the resource cage (RC) where the resource was placed and one from the RC to the HC. One door led from the HC to the other outermost cage, which acted as a control cage (CC), and one from the CC to the HC. The force needed to open the door leading from the HC to RC was manipulated. The foxes were subjected to work separately for each resource on workloads increasing every 24h from 0 kg by steps of 0.5 kg or 0.25 kg. The workload was increased until the fox no longer entered the RC within 48h. The last workload where the fox entered the RC was interpreted as the maximum price for the resource. The number of visits and time spent in the RC and CC was recorded on chosen workloads. The maximum prices were analysed using Friedman test and the other data using Linear Mixed Models (LLM) (SPSS).

Nine foxes entered the heaviest possible door weight (8 kg) at least for one resource. The maximum prices varied from 6.7±0.4 kg (mean±SE) for platform to 7.5±0.3 kg for wooden block, but did not differ between the resources (P > 0.05, Friedman test). More entries through the doors were found when the platform (27±1/per cage) or empty space (26±1) was in the RC than when the wooden block (21±1) or nest box (21±1) was in the RC, sand floor being in between these (23±1) (P < 0.001, LMM). The number of visits decreased in the RC, but increased in the CC with increasing door weight (P < 0.001). The foxes spent more time in the CC (59.0±1.5%) than in the RC (32.8±1.5%) (P < 0.001) regardless of the resource in the RC (P > 0.05). The time spent in the RC decreased and the time spent in the CC increased with increasing door weight (P < 0.001).

These results show that farmed blue foxes are highly motivated to enter the RC regardless of the resource. The results also suggest that the foxes value each tested resource equally high. On higher workloads, the visits in the CC may substitute for the visits in the RC in some degree; although the results suggest that the RC and CC are used for different activities.


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Social preferences in cubs and juvenile farmed silver fox females (Vulpes vulpes)

Anne Kathrine Akre, Morten Bakken, Anne Lene Hovland Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. Farmed silver foxes (Vulpes vulpes), like their wild counterparts the red fox, are social flexible animals and may establish social groups in captivity. Housing of silver fox consist frequently of group or pair housing only in a limited period just after weaning and adult foxes are kept singly. Social contact can be a means to improve welfare in farmed animals, but this will only occur if the individual in general have a more positive experience with being housed with conspecifics than being housed solitary. The aim of this study was to investigate the social preferences of young farmed silver fox females, in relation to age and familiarity. In addition, the test fox’ behaviour towards the stimulus animals were recorded to investigate the potential motivations for seeking social contact. A total of forty-two animals were included in the study. Fourteen cubs acted as test animals and twenty-eight were stimulus foxes. They were reared in sibling groups (2-7) after weaning until they reached 9 ½ weeks (July) and attended a three choice preference test. The preference cage (240×180×75cm) consisted of one test cage (240×80cm) and three stimuli cages (80×100cm) made of wire mesh, each containing a sister, an unfamiliar female and an empty cage. The test animals could interact with the stimulus foxes through the wire mesh walls. The stimuli cages were separated by polyethylene walls to prevent visual contact between the stimuli foxes. After the first preference test the test females were reared with their sister in two coupled standard wire mesh cages. When they reached 24 ½ weeks (October- November), the females attended the same preference test as when they were 9 ½ weeks old. The position and behaviour of the test fox were registered for both age classes using instantaneous sampling every tenth minute for twenty-six hours. The total percent of each position and behaviour was calculated. At 9 ½ weeks the cubs had a clear preference for seeking social contact with a conspecific spending 91. 9±4.41% in front of the stimulus foxes (p< 0.05). They had no preference towards familiar versus unfamiliar cubs (p=0.735), but they played significantly more when they were in front of the unfamiliar stimuli fox (p<0.001). They also investigated more in this cage compared to the empty cage (p=0.019). When juvenile, the female had no clear preference for seeking social contact or being solitary (p= 0.617), but the test female directed significant more agonistic signals towards the unfamiliar female (p<0.001). Our results indicate that female silver foxes change their social preference during autumn and suggest that the motives for seeking contact as cubs were non aggressive and possibly related to play motivation. On the contrary the aggressive behaviours displayed towards the unfamiliar females indicate an increased competitive motivation in late autumn.


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Social instability and consequences on eating and resting time in goats

Tone Sondresen, Morten Bakken and Inger Lise Andersen Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway.

Regrouping and mixing animals are common practice in domestic animal management. Social unstable environments cause social stress and increase the level of aggressive interactions. The overall aim of this experiment was to investigate how social instability affects social behaviour and consequences for feeding and resting activity. Thirty-two goats, six weeks pregnant, were divided into eight pens, with four goats in each pen. They were then subjected to two different treatments: unstable and stable social grouping. The goats in the unstable groups were rotated in pairs and regrouped every Monday for seven consecutive weeks while the goats in the stable groups remained in the same group throughout the experiment. Video recordings from the first and fifth day after each regrouping in a total of seven weeks were gathered and analyzed. As predicted regrouping led to increased number of aggressive interactions. Butting behaviour was significantly higher in unstable groups almost every week of the experiment (week 3: P<0.01, week 4: P<0.05, week 5: P<0.01, week 6: P<0.05 and week 7: P<0.01). Goats in the unstable groups had a significant lower feeding time the first hour after regrouping than goats in the stable groups (P<0.01). The unstable groups also had a significant lower resting time than stable groups in week 2 (P<0.01). Independent of treatment (unstable and stable), goats involved in many aggressive interactions (30-100 observations) had a significantly shorter resting time than goats that were involved in few aggressive interactions (0-10 observations) (P<0.05). Observations where all goats in one group fed simultaneously were rare (mean ±SE: 3, 5 % ± 1, 5 of observations). The results of the present study confirm previous findings that aggression is higher in socially unstable groups, but these differences are only seen shortly after regrouping. Furthermore the cost of being involved in aggressive interactions is a reduced feeding and resting time, especially for those individuals that are most involved in fights irrespective of treatment.


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Asking animals about their behavioural needs and preferences

Margit Bak Jensen and Lene Juul Pedersen Department of Animal Health, Welfare and Nutrition, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Aarhus, Blichers Álle 20, P.O. Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele To identify the behavioural patterns that represents behavioural needs, important questions are firstly how strongly motivated are these behavioural patterns, and secondly how do we best provide an outlet for them. To quantify motivational strength of a behavioural pattern one approach is to impose increasing costs upon access to perform the behaviour and by analysis of the so-called demand function. Price elasticity is one measure of motivational strength deriving from demand function analysis. The use of price elasticity, however, requires development and validation for the particular behavioural patterns to identify appropriate test conditions, including controlling level of access outside tests and suitable reward durations. Work on validating elasticity of demand functions as a measure of the behavioural need for rest in cattle is reviewed.

Tests of preferences can be used in order to establish how best to provide an outlet for the behavioural patterns that represent behavioural needs. In order to quantify the preference a useful approach is cross-point analysis, which adds a cost to the choice and investigates the preferences over a range of relative costs. This approach is illustrated by recent work on the establishment of preferences for rooting materials in pigs.

The importance of empirical evidence in addition to theoretical considerations is emphasised in order to identify the potential and the prerequisites of motivational measures from demand function analysis.


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Time budget and lying synchronisation of cows in conventional and automatic milking system departments

1)Satu Raussi*, 2)Seija Saastamoinen, 1)Jutta Kaihilahti*, 3)Christian Eriksson, 3)Lauri Jauhiainen, 2)Helena Hepola*

1) MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Animal Production Research, 03400 Vihti, Finland 2) Department of Animal Science, P.O. Box 28, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland 3) MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Service Unit, 31600 Jokioinen, Finland *Belongs to Research Centre for Animal Welfare, University of Helsinki, Finland We compared the time budget and synchronised lying behaviour of cows in a conventional (CMS) and in an automatic milking systems (AMS), both situating inside the same barn. The CMS housed 30 cows, and a time budget of 17 cows was followed. Facilities in this system comprised 33 cubicles (227 x 121 cm), 33 roughage feeding places and two concentrate feeders. The cows in the CMS were milked twice daily in a 2 x 5 herringbone parlour. The AMS housed 27 cows, and a time budget of 17 cows was followed. AMS facilities consisted of 27 cubicles (173 x 120 cm), 10 roughage feeding places and two concentrate feeders. Cow traffic in the AMS was guided; animals could go from the resting area to the feeding area by passing through either the milking unit or an automatic selection gate. Behaviour of the cows in the two systems was observed over three weeks in 12 six-hour periods using interval sampling every five minutes. The six-hour observation periods were at 24:00–06:00, 06:00–12:00, 12:00–18:00 and 18:00–24:00 and every time period was observed three times. AMS cows stood more (26% vs. 15% of observations, P<0.001) and lied down less than CMS cows during the time periods 06:00–12:00 (53% vs. 61% of observations, P<0.01) and 18:00–24:00 (40% vs. 61% of observations, P<0.001). AMS cows ate more often concentrate than CMS cows (4.9% vs. 4.0% of observations, P<0.05) but less often roughage during the time period 06:00–12:00 (17% vs. 21% of observations, P<0.05). CMS cows had to wait longer to be milked and the milking itself took longer (6.2% vs. 2.6% of observations, P<0.001) than for AMS cows. The synchronised lying behaviour of cows did not differ between the systems. Reasons for AMS cows standing more and lying down less than CMS cows likely arise from different milking systems and also from differences in the structures of the systems and management, including the length of the cubicles, the width of the walking alleys, the amount and location of feeding places and cow traffic arrangements. The time budget of cows appears flexible and changes when husbandry practices change. Concern should, however, be taken in the AMS to avoid idle standing and to ensure cows meet their resting need. Synchronised lying behaviour seems to be a constant phenomenon in both groups.


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Dairy calves kept together with their dams in an automatic milking system

Fröberg, S.1, Lidfors, L.2 and Svennersten-Sjaunja, K.1

1) Dep. of Animal Nutrition and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Kungsängen research centre, SE-753 23 Uppsala, Sweden. 2) Dep. of Animal Environment and Health, SLU, P.O. Box 234, SE-532 23 Skara, Sweden The aim of this study was to investigate if dairy calves allowed to suckle their mothers freely in an automatic milking (AM) system would be more active, have less non-nutritive behaviours and eat less solid feed than calves given milk from an automatic feeder. The second aim was to investigate if the suckling calves would show more behavioural signs of stress and eating less feed, during the weaning than calves fed two different rations of milk substitute from an automatic feeder. The study was carried out at Kungsängen Research Centre, Uppsala. Of the Swedish Red breed, 53 calves were studied during the milk feeding period and/or during abrupt weaning at 8 weeks of age. Calves were either allocated to stay with their dam and suckle freely (FS) in the barn with AM or to get low milk, 5 kg (LM) or high milk, 9 kg (HM) from an automatic feeder (DeLaval). At weaning calves in FS were moved to a group pen similar to the pens of the other treatments. Behaviours of FS and HM treatment were recorded one day week 2, 4 and 8, at 8:00-10:00 during the milk feeding period. During weaning calves from all treatments were observed 24-26 h before weaning and 0-2, 10-12, 24-26 and 72-74 h after weaning. During all observations, each calf was observed as a focal animal, and the different behaviours were recorded either by frequency every third minute or instantaneously at three minute intervals. During the milk feeding period HM calves seemed to be more active, they were ‘lying’ less (p<0.001) and ‘moving’ (p<0.01) and ‘sniffing object’ more (p<0.05) than FS calves. HM calves were more often recorded to ‘eat concentrate’ (p<0.001) and ‘eat hay’ (p<0.001), whereas FS performed more ‘ruminate’ (p<0.1) than HM calves. Sucking on body parts of other calves (cross-sucking) was recorded in HM but not FS calves (p<0.001), and 11 out of 17 HM calves displayed the behaviour. ‘Tongue-rolling’ was observed in two HM calves, but not in FS calves. During weaning calves in FS treatment were ‘lying’ less (p<0.0001), ‘moving’ more (p<0.001) and performed more ‘sniff object’ (p<0.01), compared to HM and LM calves, until 72 h after weaning. FS calves had, after 72 h, returned to the levels of recordings before weaning. The number of ‘vocalize’ was higher in FS compared to HM and LM calves (p<0.01). The feeding behaviours ‘eat hay’ (p<0.01), ‘eat concentrate’ and ‘ruminate’ (p<0.001) were recorded more often in HM and LM calves than in FS calves. All feeding behaviours increased with time after weaning, however 72 h after weaning LM calves had more recordings of ruminate than FS calves (p<0.05).‘Cross-sucking’, was performed more in HM than FS (p<0.05) and LM (p<0.05) calves, FS and LM calves could not be tested against each other due to few recordings. Four out of 13 FS, 13 out of 17 HM and 7 out of 18 LM calves displayed the behaviour during observations before and after weaning. ‘Tongue-rolling’ was recorded in 1 calf in FS, 9 calves in HM and 4 calves in LM treatment. In conclusion, calves suckling their dam in an automatic milking system compared to calves fed 9 kg of milk in a group pen, were less active, and performed less non-nutritive oral behaviours. After weaning the suckling calves appeared to experience more stress, due to less feeding and lying and more movements, than calves fed 5 or 9 kg in a group pen, however, FS calves did not display more non-nutritive oral behaviours.


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Stressed mothers- troubled offspring? Preliminary results from a study of maternal effects in

farmed Atlantic salmon

Marit Skog Eriksen, Bjarne Braastad, Morten Bakken Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway During the last decades, copious experiments have demonstrated that a wide range of stressors encountered by a female during pregnancy have the capacity to exert profound and permanent impacts on various physiological, morphological and behavioural characteristics of her progeny. These effects on the offspring are, at least partly, suggested to be linked to increased exposure to maternally derived glucocorticoids during the prenatal period. Puzzlingly, the impact of the prenatal environment has traditionally been given scarce consideration in fish. The teleost maternal endocrine state and that of her brood is however strongly associated. Thus, the main objective of this study was to investigate in farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) whether maternal cortisol administration prior to stripping affected the offsprings’ mortality, growth, frequency of morphological anomalies and behaviour. Seven days prior to stripping, 31 mature salmon females from the SalmoBreed strain (mean weight 8.12 ± 0.94 kg) were selected, tagged and randomly divided into two groups, representing two implant treatments. Females in group 1 received sham injections containing only coconut oil, and so served as controls, whereas the fish in group 2 were injected intraperitoneally with coconut oil containing cortisol, 100 mg cortisol ml-1 oil. The hens in group 2 were given 1 ml of the cortisol emulsion per kg body weight, and controls were injected with coconut oil, 1 ml/ kg. At stripping a sample of eggs (~2 dl) were collected from each of the mature females in the two groups. The eggs from each treatment were pooled and fertilized by a mixture of milt obtained from two untreated salmon males. Preliminary results show that maternal cortisol administration impaired fertilization success (P<0.05), increased offspring mortality from fertilization to hatching, reduced larval length (P<0.01) and diminished yolk sac volume at hatching (P<0.0001). Cortisol implantation did not significantly affect the occurrence of morphological anomalies in the offspring. Individuals inflicted with morphological anomalies were at hatch shorter (P<0.001) and had reduced yolk sac volume (P<0.05) as compared to their normal counterparts. Finally, it was found that prenatal cortisol exposure increased the progeny’s activity levels (P<0.01) in an isolation test five months after hatching. These data illustrate that an improved emphasis should be placed upon the plausible influence of the prenatal environment on development and characteristics in farmed fish.


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Thursday 17th January

Page 15

Abstracts of oral presentations Thursday 17th January 2008




Page 16

Indirect sperm selection and cryptic male choice: lessons from fish and humans

Tomislav Vladić Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science Department of Animal Environment and Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences P.O. Box 234, SE- 532 23 Skara, Sweden Sperm competition is a process ensuing when a female mates with several males during a single reproductive cycle, causing genes to be represented in populations depending on the male quality and female choice. Sperm quality evolution is still poorly understood because of the assumptions about the competing male behavior, which were more often investigated than the assumptions regarding behavior and physiology of the haploid spermatozoa. However, in the praxis of human artificial fertilization, high-quality spermatozoa are selected by swim-up technique to harvest gametes with the greatest chance of fertilizing an ovum. The markers of such sperm populations are not fully recognized. In this presentation, two aspects of sperm quality and one aspect of female fecundity were investigated. First, we investigated whether sperm numbers or ejaculate physiological quality determine the success in sperm competition in the Atlantic salmon, an externally fertilizing species that experiences high intensities of sperm competition between anadromous and precocious (parr) males on spawning grounds. Second, we hypothesised that gamete quality will be reflected in the gamete size. Thus, long spermatozoa should be generally superior to shorter ones; therefore highly mobile human swim-up selected spermatozoa will be longer, and have longer mid-piece and tail tips than have these cell structures in the untreated sperm population. Finally, we predicted that large trout eggs will be preferentially fertilized due to the effects of larger target size and greater survival probability for alevines that are born from large eggs. Precociously mature Atlantic salmon males (parr) produce sperm of superior quality; therefore parr males win in sperm competition with the anadromous males (ANOVA: F1,20= 59.96, p< 0.001). In salmon, sperm length parameters correlated positively with ATP (multiple regression: r²= 0.41, p<0.05), energy charge (multiple regression: r²= 0.51, p<0.05) and fertilization success (ANCOVA: F1,11= 6.148, p<0.05). Surprisingly, swim-up selected for apparently short cells with long mitochondria (GLM: F2,15= 3.645, p= 0.05 and F2,15= 4.122, p< 0.05, respectively). Men producing great sperm concentrations and numbers had swim-up spermatozoa with longer midpieces and flagellar tips than had patients producing low sperm concentrations and numbers in ejaculates (ANCOVAs: F3,12=5.557, p<0.05 and F3,12 =5,220, p<0.05, respectively). In contrast to precociously mature parr males, anadromous trout males preferentially fertilized small eggs, providing thus an indication of phenotypically plastic cryptic male choice (ANCOVA: F2,11= 6.148, p<0.05). To conclude, precociously mature salmonid males were found to produce ejaculates of superior physiological quality as a compensation to behavioral sub-ordinance in sperm competition. Morphometry of human spermatozoa contributes to the clinical efficiency of swim-up selection procedure for assisted reproduction purposes.


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Late introduction of sows to the farrowing environment (pens or crates): Effects on the progress of parturition and

maternal behaviour. Trine Jensen & Lene Juul Pedersen Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Aarhus, Blichers Allé 20, P.O. Box 50, DK- 8830 Tjele, Denmark. The successful selection for littersize has increased the need for foster sows for the surplus piglets, combined with an increase of the average weaning age the time the average sows spends in the farrowing unit is prolonged. Due to higher preliminary costs the size of the farrowing unit does not always meet the requirements for a given production size. As a consequence of an insufficient number of farrowing pens the sows are often moved to the farrowing unit only shortly before the expected farrowing. Such a move immediately prior to parturition may be stressful for the peri-parturient sow, with potential negative effects on the progression of parturition, maternal behaviour and welfare. To evaluate the effect of late introduction to the farrowing environment on the progress of parturition and maternal behaviour, 30 primiparous and 30 multiparous sows were allocated randomly to one of three different treatments in two environments: (LC) introduced day 114 of gestation to crates (n=20), (LP) introduced day 114 of gestation to pens (n=20) and (EP) introduced day 104 of gestation to pens (n=20). All sows had access to straw for nestbuilding. Sow behaviour and piglet-birth-intervals (IBI) were recorded using continues video recordings from 16 h before the birth of the first piglet (BFP) until 48 after BFP. Before parturition (-16 h to -3 h before BFP) the sows introduced late to both crates and pens had more posture changes per hour than sows moved early to pens (EP<LC: P=0.006; EP<LP: P=0.04). However this increased activity of the sows moved late was not converted into nest building, as LC sows spent less time nest building (46 ± 17 sec per hour) than both LP (101 ±48 sec per hour) and EP sows (142 ±50 sec per hour) These results indicate a general restlessness in the sows introduced late to the farrowing environment. Primiparous sows moved late to crates had longer (P = 0.04) and more varied inter-birth-intervals (P=0.01) and a higher rate of stillborn piglets (P = 0.003) than primiparous sows moved to pens. In contrast, late introduction of multiparous sows to the farrowing environment did not affect the progress of parturition or the rate of stillborn piglets. Maternal behaviour during early lactation was not affected by treatment, therefore the study gives no evidence that the effects are extended into early lactation. In conclusion, this study show that if pregnant sows are moved to farrowing pens where they are given the opportunity to move around and explore their new environment they readily adapt and only very moderate effects can be found of a late move on the nest building phase and no effects on the progression of parturition. In contrast, when moved late to crates multiparous sows benefit from experience, while primiparous sows are severely affected during both the nest building phase and during parturition. The results put emphasis on the negative consequences of the discrepancy between the gestation environment and the farrowing environment for primiparous sows.


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Cross fostering of piglets in farrowing pens Pedersen, L.J., Jensen, H., Thodberg, K. Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Aarhus, Blickers Allé 20, P.O. Box 50, DK- 8830 Tjele, Denmark. Successful genetic selection for increased litter size and live piglets on day 5 after birth has led to a routine use of foster mothers in the Danish pig industry. With an average of 13.5 live born per litter the majority of piglets will be involved in some form of cross fostering. The most common method employed has been to transfer newborn piglets from a large to a smaller litter. However, since litters of 20 piglets are now more common than litters of 10 piglets, there is an increasing need for mothers that nurse first their own litter and then foster alien piglets for another 3-4 weeks. It is known that crated sows accept new born piglets more readily than they accept 4-day old piglets, whereas the response of sows housed loose in pens is not well known. These sows are able to respond more strongly to alien piglets with potentially more aggressive acts and constraints to milk let down. There may thus be a conflict between the ongoing selection for more live piglets in a litter and the applicability of more welfare friendly housing systems such as loose housing farrowing systems. The present study investigated the behavioural response of loose housed sows to alien piglets at birth and 4 days after, as well as the milk uptake and integration of alien piglets in the resident litter. Sixty sows balanced for parity were randomly distributed to either cross fostering day 1 or cross fostering day 4 after parturition. Litter size was standardized in all litters at birth to a maximum of 12 live piglets by transferring piglets to non-experimental sows. During cross fostering 4 randomly chosen piglets were removed from the litter and replaced with 4 alien piglets from a non experimental litter of same age. Behavioural observations from digitalized video recordings were made day 1 and day 4 from the time of cross fostering (10 a.m.) and 8 hours ahead. Observations included sow responses (aggression, postural changes, and milk let-down), piglet suckling behaviour (teat fights and number of missed suckling bouts) and piglet integration in the litter (piglet position, preferred resting sites, nearest neighbour). Sows that received alien piglets on day 4 when compared to undisturbed sows on day 4 post-partum had more piglet directed aggression (0.70 ± 0.13 vs. 0.12 ± 0.02; P<0.001) and more postural changes per hour (6.2 ± 0.42 vs. 4.4. ± 0.42; P<0.001). In contrast, cross-fostering carried out on day 1 showed no differences in behaviour between sows that received alien piglets and sows that did not. A higher percentage of the piglets in litters where cross fostering took place on day 4 were involved in teat fights when compared to litters that were not cross fostered on day 4 (5.1 % ± 2.7 % vs 1.7 % ± 2.6 %) and a lower percentage of the piglets suckled during milk let down (74 % ± 2.7 % vs 84 % ± 2.6% ). In addition, the alien fostered piglets were observed to rest more frequently on the slatted floor and less frequently in the creep area compared to non-fostered piglets. In conclusion, the study showed that cross fostering on day 4 in loose housed sows has major impact on sow behaviour, suckling behaviour and integration of alien piglets in the foster litter, whereas fostering day 1 can be implemented without major consequences. The results puts emphasis on the problems caused by the intensive breeding for more live piglets in a litter.


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Nursing quality in sows and piglet mortality - preliminary results on the effects of a high and low breeding value for survival rate and two different farrowing environments.

Signe Lovise Thingnes 1, Inger Lise Andersen 1 Kari Torsethaugen 1, Lene J. Pedersen 2

1Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Science, 2University of Aarhus, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Foulum, Denmark. The primary aim of this study was to asses the causes of preweaning mortality, teat success among piglets, defined as number of piglets’ present and receiving milk at milk let-down., and nursing behaviour in sows with a low versus high breeding value, and that were either confined in crates or kept in loose housed pens during farrowing and lactation. Secondly we wanted to evaluate the importance of breeding value versus farrowing environment with respect to these variables. Twenty-six Yorkshire x Landrace gilts with a high breeding value for survival rate to day five (High Breeding Group, HBG) and 22 Yorkshire x Landrace gilts with a low breeding value for survival rate to day five (Low Breeding Group, LBG) were used in the experiments. Twenty-two of the gilts were kept in loose housed pens, of which 11 belonged to the HBG and 11 to the LBG. Twenty-six of the gilts were kept in farrowing crates, of which 15 belonged to the HBG and 11 to the LBG. The gilts were pair-wise full-siblings, and the two full-siblings were distributed to the two different farrowing systems. The gilts were filmed from the day of farrowing until day 5 after farrowing and again on day 21. Nursing behaviour was recorded for 8 hours on day 1 and 21. Sows in loose housed pens belonging to the LBG, had more stillborn than the other groups (P<0.05) and there was a tendency for more deaths in the loose housed pens than in the farrowing crates (P<0.10). No significant difference was found in total mortality among piglets born in farrowing crates and loose housed pens. The sows in the farrowing crates initiated more nursings throughout the nursing period, than the sows in the loose housed pens (P<0.001). Sow with a high breeding value terminates more nursings on day 21 then sows with a low breeding value (P<0.05). No other effect of breeding value was found on nursing quality. Nursing behaviour was largely affected by litter size, where an increase in litter size was associated with more frequent nursings on day 1 (P<0.05), increased number of teat fights (P<0.01), longer time to first suckle (P<0.001), and a lower teat success in terms of more piglets not receiving milk at milk let- down (P<0.0001).


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Domestication related genetic effects on social behaviour in chickens - a possible effect of a major growth QTL

Anna Wiréna, Ulrika Gunnarssonb, Leif Anderssonb and Per Jensena aDepartment of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Division of Zoology, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden bDepartment of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Uppsala University, Box 582, SE-751 23 Uppsala, Sweden Domestication is an evolutionary process where animals become adapted to a life in close proximity to humans, and under the specific selection pressures associated with this. Except for the requirement to cope with human company, farm animals today are often faced with living in larger social groups than their wild ancestors would ever have encountered. It may therefore be hypothesized that the process of domestication has changed a range of social behaviours. In a cross between red junglefowl (“RJF”, the wild ancestor of domestic chickens) and White Leghorn layers (“WL”), a quantitative trait locus (“Growth1”) on chromosome 1 has previously been found to influence production traits such as growth rate, egg weight and adult body weight, but also behavioural traits like fear response, social motivation and exploratory behaviour. The Growth1 region harbours a gene coding for the avian homolog of the arginine vasopressin receptor 1a, AVPR1a. The expression level of this gene in the brain has been shown to be correlated with variations in social systems (gregariousness/territoriality) in finches, as well as social behaviour in rats, mice and voles. In the study presented here we therefore performed two different behavioural experiments in order to quantify aspects of sociality in chickens from an advanced intercross line (AIL) between RJF and WL, selected for different genotypes at a microsatellite marker locus in the growth QTL and close to AVPR1a. We also performed one of these experiments on pure red junglefowl and White Leghorns. RJF and WL showed markedly different sociality towards unfamiliar chickens at four weeks of age, with Leghorns being more interested in inspecting strangers (P<0.001). Male chickens from the AIL line, homozygous for either the RJF or WL allele at the marker locus differed in a similar way as the parental breeds in the same sociality test (P=0.02). Furthermore, adult AIL males homozygous for the WL allele at the marker locus were less aggressive to unfamiliar conspecifics when subjected to a test of dominance (P=0.009). Taken together, the results suggest that domestication has caused changes in social behaviour, which, in males, may partly depend on variations in the genotype on the growth related QTL. Although many genes may be linked to the marker used in this study, AVPR1a seems particularly interesting and could be the object for future studies of difference in brain gene expression between RJF and WL.


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Effects of domestication on filial motivation and imprinting in chicks: comparison of red jungle fowl and

White Leghorns

Richard D. Kirkden, Christina Lindqvist and Per Jensen IFM Biology, Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden Domestication has been reported to reduce learning ability and to alter social behaviour. This study compared the development of filial behaviour between domestic chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) and the ancestral red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus). We investigated the tendency of naïve chicks to approach conspicuous stimuli, as a measure of filial motivation; and the development of a preference for familiar stimuli over unfamiliar ones, as a measure of imprinting and hence of social learning ability. Chicks were placed in an arena containing two stimuli (a red cylinder and a blue ball) after being housed individually with one of these stimuli for 0, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48, or 60 h. During a 20 min trial observations were made of their latency to approach each stimulus and the amount of time spent close to them. With no prior exposure to either stimulus (0 h), the breeds did not differ in their readiness to approach stimuli, suggesting no difference in filial motivation. However, the breeds differed in their initial preferences between the two stimuli tested and in their ability to imprint on them. Jungle fowl chicks showed an initial preference for the red cylinder, but imprinted equally well on both stimuli, whereas Leghorn chicks showed no initial preference but imprinted relatively poorly on the red cylinder. We suggest that jungle fowl chicks may be more flexible in their ability to imprint on stimuli than domestic chicks; however, a greater variety of stimulus types must be tested to confirm this.


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Effects of a mutation in PMEL17 on social and exploratory behaviour in chickens – possible relations with feather

pecking Anna-Carin Karlsson1, Susanne Kerje2, Leif Andersson3, Daniel Nätt1 and Per Jensen1

1Department of Biology IFM, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping Sweden 2Depertment of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Uppsala Biomedical Center, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-751 24 Uppsala, Sweden, 3Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Uppsala University, Box 582, SE-751 23 Uppsala, Sweden PMEL17 is a protein important in tissue pigmentation. The protein acts in the maturation of premelanosomes into melanosomes where it drives the formation of striations on which melanin is deposited. Chickens with a mutated PMEL17 gene carry a non-pigmented white plumage, while chickens homozygous for the wild type PMEL17 gene show a pigmented plumage. Earlier studies have shown that a mutation in the PMEL17 gene protects against feather pecking, an abnormal behaviour where birds are removing feathers from each other. There are suggestions that feather pecking might to some extent be related to differences in social behaviour between the PMEL17 genotypes. The aim was to study behaviour and gene expression in brains of two homozygous PMEL17 genotypes. The study was done in two replicates, both performed during the same period of the year, with different batches of chickens originating from an advanced intercross between the domestic White Leghorn (SLU13) and the ancestor of todays domestic fowl, the red jungle fowl. Social behaviour was studied in a runway test, a social versus foraging test and a social affinity test. Both replicates showed differences between the genotypes in all three tests, but the direction of the results was not consistent. In general, the chickens were more active in replicate two. The data could not verify a consistent difference in social behaviour between the genotypes, so PMEL17 effects on social behaviour may be less important than hypothesised with respect to feather pecking victimisation. An explorative test carried out on only the chickens from the second replicate revealed some behavioural differences, where the wild type chickens were more explorative. Hence, PMEL17-caused differences in exploratory behaviour may be a higher risk factor than social behaviour for being exposed to feather pecking. Brains were sampled from both genotypes for RNA extraction and cDNA conversion. Amplification by PCR showed no PMEL17 expression in brain. In conclusion, the two homozygous PMEL17 genotypes show a tendency to differ in exploratory behaviour, but the results were less clear for social behaviour. A difference in behaviour may be one contributing reason why the birds homozygous for the wild-type PMEL17 gene are more vulnerable for feather pecking compared to birds homozygous for a PMEL17 mutation. The difference in behaviour is not caused by an expression of the gene in the brains of the chickens, so the genotype differences must depend on extra-neural gene expression. Another possible explanation could be an interaction between PMEL17 and other genes, or effects of linked genes.


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Lying behavior and space allowance for piglets subjected to different infrared temperatures

Guro Vasdal, Eileen F. Wheeler, Andreas Flø and Knut Egil Bøe Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås The objective of this study was to investigate the lying behavior and creep space allowance for suckling piglets at different ages and different infrared temperatures. Ten piglets for each of eight litters were at 6, 7 and 8 days of age (week 1) placed in an experimental creep area with either recommended infrared temperature (34 °C), 4 °C below (cool treatment) or 4 °C above (warm treatment). This procedure was repeated at 13, 14, 15 days (week 2) and 20, 21 and 22 days of age (week 3) with recommended temperatures of 27 and 25 °C respectively. Digital photos were taken when all the 10 piglets had settled in the creep area, and the lying posture, huddling behavior and space occupation were analyzed. A lying posture score and a huddling score was calculated by multiplying the number of piglets in each category with a given value for each category based on different lying postures and different degrees of huddling behavior. A high posture score will represent a high degree of piglets lying sternum, and a high huddling score will represent a high degree of huddling behavior. Space occupation was calculated from the sum of squares occupied by the resting litter based on a painted grid on the lying surface in the creep area. The data was analyzed using a mixed model analysis of variance with set point infrared temperature as a main effect and litter as a random effect. Increasing the infrared temperature had a large impact on lying posture. The lying posture score decreased significantly when infrared temperature was increased, both in week 1, 2 and 3 (P < 0.05, P < 0.001, P < 0.001 respectively). Further, the proportion of piglets lying fully recumbent increased from 32 % in the cold treatment to 44% in the warm treatment in week 1. Corresponding numbers for week 2 and three was 12 % to 52 % and 14 % to 41 % respectively. The huddling score also decreased with increasing infrared temperature, but this effect was only significant in week 1 (P < 0.05). This might suggest that while younger piglets tend to use huddling behavior as a mean of thermoregulation, older piglets will rely more on changes in lying postures. Space occupation was influenced by the lying postures and huddling behavior of the piglets. Both in week 1, 2 and 3 the space occupation increased with increasing infrared temperature, (P < 0.01, P < 0.001 and P < 0.005). There was a significant effect of litter on space occupied in all three weeks (p<0.5) and this effect was mainly caused by the weight of the litter (body size). In conclusion, this data give valuable information for recommending infrared temperatures and space allowance in creep areas.


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Physical exercise and home pen activity in broiler chickens. Helle H. Kristensen1 and Tina B. Jensen2. 1Animal Behaviour and Welfare 2Epidemiology University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Life Sciences, Grønnegårdsvej 8, DK-1870 Frb.C. In recent years, there has been much focus upon leg health in broiler chickens. Increased activity has been shown to be one of the methods, which can improve leg health, although the optimal age and level of activity has not yet been identified for broiler chickens. As part of a larger project with this objective, we assessed how forced daily exercise on a treadmill affected the undisturbed activity of the broilers in their home pens. Male ROSS308 broiler chickens were reared in 32 pens of 6 birds from day-old to 39 days of age. The pens were randomly allocated one of eight different exercise treatments in a factorial design. In each treatment, birds were required to walk a particular distance on a treadmill (0, 50, 100 m daily) either early (0-3 weeks), late (3-6 weeks) or throughout the growing period (0-6 weeks). The birds were exercised in groups on a treadmill at 0.3 km/h for either 10 or 20 minutes (equivalent to walking either 50 or 100 m) per day. The birds were fed ad libitum and were motivated to walk on the treadmill towards the experimenter’s hand, to which they had been imprinted. Apart from the forced physical exercise on the treadmill, undisturbed activity was recorded in the home pens via overhead video cameras, attached to a digital motion detection system (MSH video), which logged the number of pixel-blocks changing between consecutive frames on the video every minute. One day per week, the birds were left in their home pens, and the undisturbed activity during these days was compared between treatments (weekly measures of activity). In addition, the undisturbed activity of the birds was recorded in the home pens during the first two and the last two hours of the photoperiod (05-07:00 and 19-21:00) daily. Our preliminary results showed that the level of physical exercise which the birds received in the first 3 weeks of life significantly affected their undisturbed activity throughout their life, depending on the exercise treatment (Anova, F(3,69)=4.08, P=0.01). In contrast, the level of physical exercise applied later in life (from 3 weeks onwards) did not significantly affect undisturbed activity (Anova, F(2,67)=2.67, P=0.20). There was a significant difference between exercise treatments in the weekly activity levels (Anova, F(7,65)=3.14, P=0.006). The birds were more active during the last than the first two hours of their photoperiod, and there was a significant interaction between treatment and time-of-day in the daily activity in the home pens (Anova, F(7,1037)=2.08, P=0.004). In summary, broilers walking either 50 or 100 m on the treadmill for the first 3 weeks of life were more active in their home pens than birds placed on the treadmill for a similar amount of time but without the treadmill running. Since previous studies have found that increased activity improves leg health in broilers, we are currently comparing our findings with measures of leg health in the experiment. This will indicate whether it is possible to suggest an optimal level and age of activity for the welfare of broiler chickens.


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Free stall design affects stall usage 1Lars Erik Ruud, 1Knut E. Bøe and 2Olav Østerås. 1Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Departement of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. 2Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Oslo, Norway. The objective of this study was to evaluate effect of free stall design on stall usage in Norwegian dairy herds. In 232 Norwegian free stalled dairy herds, trained observers recorded number of lying, standing, eating and milking cows every tenth minute in total four times starting one hour after morning feeding (milking cows is only for herds with automatic milking systems). Stall Use Index (SUI) was calculated as cows lying divided by total number of cows except of eating and milking cows. Mean overall SUI for all herds was 0.64 (SD 0.16) ranging from 0.08 – 0.94. Mean stall base length against wall was 239.9 cm and as double row 224.0 cm. Width measured inside the dividers was in average 113.7 cm. Neck rail height for all herds was in average 106.8 cm and mean diagonal distance from rear curb to neck rail was 191.7 cm. Rear curb height for all herds was in average 23.6 cm. Softness of stall base was classified into following groups; 1: wood and concrete, 2: compact rubber mats and stud mats, 3: soft mats and mattresses. Four herds were excluded from the dataset because of problems with delayed morning milking, calving or veterinary treatments in the herds. The correlation between SUI and each of the design parameters stall base length (wall and double row), neck rail height, diagonal neck rail distance, height of rear curb, stall base softness and also locomotion was calculated. There were found significant correlations between SUI and thickness of mat/ mattress (corr.: 0.241, p<0.001), stall base length against wall (corr.: 0.191, p<0.01) and the height of rear curb (corr.: 0.133, p<0.05). There were nearly a significant correlation between SUI and locomotion (p=0.06) and a small tendency to correlation between SUI and stall base length placed as double row (p=0.11). There were found no correlations between SUI and position of neck rail (height and diagonal distance to rear curb), width of stall or stall surface type. In this study we found that length of stall base, the height of rear curb and the thickness of mats/ mattresses is important factors to consider when designing free stalls, and that the position of neck rail does not influence the stall use index one hour after morning feeding when the cows are highly motivated to lye down. It is still an open question how relevant the SU index is as a tool for assessing stall usage or stall comfort under field conditions, and it is necessary to validate the index before it could be widely used.


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Behaviour and use of protection in heifers and suckler cows kept outside in the winter time in Sweden

Katharina Graunke1 and Lena Lidfors2

1Technical University Munich, Weyarner Str. 19, D-81547 Munich, Germany 2Department of Animal Environment and Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, PO Box 234, SE-532 23 Skara, Sweden In today’s agricultural environment it is possible for free-ranging cattle to behave almost as nat-ural as they would in the wild. Little is known about the correlation between weather and the use of natural or artificial protection by cattle in Northern Europe and the results of the few studies carried out and observations of the animal owners are very diverse. The aim of this study was to investigate the behaviour of cattle (Bos taurus) kept in semi-natural environment during winter time and to study the effect of weather and available protection on the behaviour. The study was carried out in the southwest of Sweden at a private farm having a pasture of 12 ha and a herd of 78-85 adult beef cattle head and 0-50 calves (newborn till 8 months old). Protec-tion was available by coniferous forest which was situated both on and around the pasture which was divided into the protection categories “In forest”, “Near protection”, “No protection”. From December 2006 till March 2007 ten cows and ten heifers of Black Angus and Black Angus-Charolais-crossbreeds were observed as focal animals during a total of 240 hours. Four hours of observation were carried out each day and the observation times were adjusted to the altitude of the sun. Temperature, wind speed and solar radiation were measured both in the animals’ sur-rounding and at the most exposed spot of the pasture. The different variables were combined to a single measure called Wind Chill Temperature (WCT). All collected data was analysed with a Poisson-regression model-link, logistic regression model-link functions, the Friedman two-way analysis of variance by ranks, the Wilcoxon signed ranks test and the Sign test. During observations the animals were in the forest in 12.4 %, near protection in 10.4 % and without protection in 77.2 % of the recordings. If the proportionate percentages of lying per pro-tection category were compared, the animals were lying significantly more in the forest com-pared with lying without any protection (p < 0.001). During precipitation, i.e. rain, snow and hail, the animals frequented the forest 2.71 times more often than when there was no precipita-tion (p < 0.05); however, only in 17.0 % of the hours with precipitation the focal animal was in the forest. In 75 % of the observation hours the WCT in the animals’ surrounding was at least 2 °C higher than at the most exposed spot of the pasture. In the animals’ surrounding the mean temperature was 1.8 °C higher (p < 0.001) and the mean wind speed 1.7 m/sec lower (p < 0.001) than at the most exposed spot of the pasture. Without precipitation the animals were lying less (p < 0.001), feeding more (p < 0.001) and ruminating less (p < 0.001) at low WCT. During precipitation they behaved the other way around and were lying more (p < 0.001), feeding less (p < 0.001) and ruminating more (p < 0.001) at low WCT. There were more animals within a two-cow-lengths-ambit around the focal animal at lower WCT (p < 0.001) and higher wind speed (p < 0.01) than at higher WCT and lower wind speeds. Furthermore, in the forest the sub-jects had less animals close to them than without any protection (p < 0.01). The results indicate that the animals adapted to the circumstances and behaved differently according to the weather and degree of protection. The animals were able to find warmer microclimates even without always having to frequent protecting objects. However, to have con-specifics for protection during cold temperatures and high wind speeds seems to be important for cattle both when no other protection and when other protection is available.


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The effect of a grass floor on the behaviour and leg condition of broilers

Bassler, A.W., Berg, C.1, Presto, M. 2, Elwinger, K. 2, Keeling, L.J., The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Dept. of Animal Environment and Health, P.O. Box 7038, 750 07 Uppsala. 1 The Swedish Board of Agriculture, 551 82 Jönköping. 2 SLU, Dept. of Animal Nutrition and Management, 750 07 Uppsala. The effect of a grass floor on the behaviour and leg condition of broilers was studied. The birds were kept in ‘floorless pens’ (see figure) and the experimental design included 3 ground types: outdoors on pasture, outdoors on straw and indoors on wood shavings; 2 genotypes: fast growing (ROSS 208) and slow growing (ISA 657); and 2 feeding levels: ad libitum and restricted. The pens were stocked in a way that stocking density in kg live weight per m2 at the day of slaughter was 14 kg/m2 in all groups (30-47 birds per group). In total, 960 birds were kept in 24 groups. The pens on pasture were moved daily, the pens on the other ground types not. Behaviour observations were carried out at 5, 8 and 11 weeks of age. Observations comprised of instantaneous sampling 6 focal animals and scan sampling of the whole group. Ground type did not affect ground pecking, scratching, walking or other types of behaviour that could be regarded as related specifically to the ground (P>0.01). Gait scores (GS), varus/valgus deformity of the intertarsal joint (VVD) and foot-pad dermatitis (FPD) were registered at the age of 6 and 11.5 weeks. At 11.5 weeks of age, birds on straw had higher GS (P<0.001, ROSS only), i.e. a worse gait, and more VVD (P<0.001) than on other ground types. FPD was found only on straw. Compared with the other genotype / feeding level combinations, ad libitum-fed ROSS birds had higher GS (P<0.001) on all ground types at 6 weeks of age. It is concluded that the effect of grassland as such, i.e. the isolated effect of a grass floor on physical activity and gait score of broilers is at best limited. It may be that a more important factor for the physical activity of broilers kept in systems with access to pasture is the additional space offered, compared to indoor systems.

Figure: Drawing of a floorless pen, 3.30 wide x 4.00 x 0.65 m, containing 2 experimental groups


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Double bunks for indoor wintering sheep - How to meet the demands of new regulations in organic

farming in Norway? Inger Hansen and Vibeke Lind Bioforsk Nord Tjøtta, P.O. Box 34, N-8860 Tjøtta, Norway According to the EU regulations for organic sheep farming the indoor area per animal must be at least 1.5 m2, of which 0.75 m2 should consist of a solid lying floor. In Norway the requirements of 1.5 m2 indoor area per head will come into force from January 1st 2011 (LMD 2006). Until further legislation is considered, Norway is exempted from the solid floor regulations (LMD 2005). The use of wooden lying areas in two floors, called “double bunks” (DB), is a possibility that increases the total floor area available per sheep as well as being a solid floor, and may be a way to meet the demands of the new regulations in organic sheep farming in Norway. Ewe lambs’ preferences for DB, measured as number of lambs within pen lying either in the DB or on the expanded metal floor (EMF), were documented by video recording at 6 (N=4 pens of 6 lambs each), 12 (N=4 pens of 5 lambs) and 18 months of age (N=4 pens of 5 lambs). At 6 months, lambs were shorn half way through the research period and two different heights (50/60 cm) and depths (60/75 cm) of the DB were tested. Older lambs were shorn before tested and all DB were 60 cm high and 60 cm wide. The same individuals were tested at an increasing age. For practical reasons, lambs were housed in pens with DB only during the adaptation- and study periods. Fully fleeced lambs aged 6 months preferred to lie on EMF rather than in DB (P<0.001). After shearing, the use of EMF for lying declined (P<0.05) and no significant preference for either of the floor materials was found. Regardless of bedding material the lambs tended to lie less when newly shorn (P=0.06). Twelve months old shorn lambs also used DB just as much as EMF (ns), however 18 months old shorn hoggets tended to prefer DB to lie on (P=0.09). Six months old lambs lying on the ground floor bunk tended to choose bunks with the highest “headroom” (60 cm, P=0.1). No other differences in preference between bunk designs were found. Therefore, only the 60 x 60 cm design was used for the following tests. The results are discussed according to the regulations for organic sheep farming in Norway, and also from a practical point of view. Since it was only during the period immediately after shearing that sheep preferred DB equally or slightly more than EMF to lie on, a two-floor lying area for sheep cannot be recommended.


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Group size and social interactions in goats Hege Gaudernack Tønnesen, Knut Egil Bøe and Inger Lise Andersen

Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway.

The main objective of this work was to examine effects of group size on social behaviour of Norwegian, dairy goats.

Fourty-eight goats were divided into two separate units with 24 goats in each. The goats were subjected to the following three treatments: group sizes 6, 12 and 24 at 1m2/goat. In unit 1 the goats were kept in one group of 24 individuals in the first week, then divided into two groups of 12 individuals in the second week and finally divided into four groups of 6 individuals in week three. In unit 2, the goats were first housed in groups of 6, then 12 and finally 24 individuals. The entire experiment lasted for three weeks, and 8 hours of video recordings (from 10.00 -18.00 hours) were made on day 1 and 5 each week. Social behaviours were scored continuously.

As predicted, the results showed that the amount of agonistic behaviours, such as displacements from the feeding and lying area, chasing, threatening, biting and mounting reduced with increasing group size (P<0.001). However, the most intense and costly aggressive interaction, butting/clashing, was most frequently seen in the intermediate group size (P<0.05). Contrary to what was predicted, the proportion of individuals involved in fights did not decline with increasing group size. The amount of positive interactions (i.e. social grooming, exploring and resting in body contact) decreased with increasing group size (P< 0,001), showing that negative and positive social interactions not necessarily are negatively linked as we might expect. Finally, the number cases where one goat interrupted the fight of two others reduced with increasing group size (P<0.005), which could be explained by the fact that the overall aggression level was lowest in the largest group size. This behaviour is very poorly described in the literature, but appears to be more frequent in goats when the aggression level is high.


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Evaluating social encounters between unfamiliar horses Elke Hartmann1, Janne Winther-Christensen2, Linda Keeling1 1 Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Dept. Animal Environment and Health, Box 7038, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden. 2 University of Aarhus, Dept. Animal Health, Welfare and Nutrition, Box 50, 8830 Tjele, Denmark. The study aim was to investigate if unfamiliar horses which meet in neighboring boxes before being put together in a paddock show a lower frequency of aggression in the paddock compared to horses that don’t have the opportunity of contact in neighboring boxes. The study was part of the NKJ project ‘Group housing horses under Nordic conditions: strategies to improve horse welfare and human safety’. Although research has shown the benefits of group housing, especially with respect to social contact, it is not widely applied in practice. This might be due to concerns such as an increased risk of horses injuring each other or the lack of knowledge of how to introduce a new horse into an established herd to prevent injuries and to make integration as smooth as possible. A total of 20, two year old Danish Warmblood mares were used. They were kept separately in two groups of 10 horses each at the Research Centre Foulum, Denmark. The reactions of horses to unfamiliar conspecifics were measured by testing one horse from one group pair-wise with one unfamiliar horse from the other group. In total, 60 pairings were arranged, whereby each horse was confronted with six, unknown individuals. The subjects were exposed to two treatments: 1) box + paddock (horses meet in boxes, then in the paddock) and 2) paddock (horses meet for the first time in the paddock). Social encounters were video recorded. The frequency of non-agonistic and agonistic interactions were analysed from the video recordings and the sender and receiver of a particular behaviour pattern was noted. The video recordings are currently being analysed and results will be presented. Keywords: group-housing, horses, behaviour


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Agonistic behaviour in stable and unstable social groups of pregnant goats and its consequences for kid survival and

development Andersen, I. L.1, Roussel, S. 3, Ropstad, E. 2, Braastad, B. O. 1, Steinheim, G. 1, Janczak, A. M. 1, Jørgensen, G. M. 1, and Bøe, K. E1. 1Norwegian University of Life Sciences, department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, Norway 2Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Department of Production Animal Science, P.O. Box 8146 Dep N-0033 Oslo, Norway 3UMR AgroParisTech INRA Physiologie de la Nutrition et Alimentation, AgroParisTech, 16 rue Claude Bernard, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of social instability (regrouping) during the second trimester (seven weeks) of pregnancy on aggression, cortisol concentrations and growth in goats and its consequences for survival, growth and some aspects of behavioural development in the kids. Six weeks after mating, 32 goats were distributed into eight groups. In four of the groups, randomly chosen pairs of goats were rotated between groups every Monday morning (around 0830) for seven weeks (unstable groups), starting six weeks into gestation (second trimester). The remaining four groups were kept stable throughout the entire pregnancy (stable groups). The adult goats were video recorded for six hours twice a week for the first, second, fourth and seventh regrouping and for the two last weeks before expected birth. Blood samples of the adult goats and their kids were collected every morning. Two kids from each litter were subjected to two types of behavioural tests: a ‘social test’ at the age of one and seven weeks and a ‘novel object test’ at the age of five weeks. The frequency of agonistic interactions was higher in unstable than in stable groups at each regrouping (P < 0.05), but the differences in agonistic interactions were minimal 5 days after regrouping. However, the difference in agonistic interactions did not result in any differences in cortisol concentration. Growth of the goats was also similar in the two treatments. There was no difference in reproductive success in terms of number of surviving kids, nor was there any difference in growth from birth until weaning. However, the most aggressive goats (> 35 butts/clashes per day) tended to produce fewer live born kids (P=0.08) and a higher proportion of male offspring (P=0.07) than the least aggressive goats (<7 butts/clashes per day), irrespective of treatment. Furthermore, the kids from the most aggressive goats had a lower birth weight (P<0.01), weaning weight (P< 0.05) and weight gain from birth until weaning (P<0.05) than the kids from the least aggressive goats. Kids from the unstable groups tended to have a more active coping style as indicated by more escape attempts in the first trial of a ‘social test’ (P = 0.09), to be more exploratory as indicated by more time spent in contact with a novel object (P = 0.09) and unfamiliar kids (P < 0.01), and to show less fear (escape attempts) after they were given one exposure to the social test situation (P < 0.05). Furthermore, kids from unstable groups had a lower basal cortisol level than kids from stable groups (P <0.05).


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Grouping horses according to gender – effects on social interactions and spacing

Linn Borsheim1, Grete H.M. Jørgensen1, Cecilie M. Mejdell2 and Knut E. Bøe1. 1Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. 2National Veterinary Institute, Department of Animal Health, P.O. Box 8156 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway. The number of horses kept for leisure or hobby purposes has increased dramatically the last decades. Traditionally, horses have been kept singly both inside the stable and outside in individual paddocks. There is an increasing interest for group housing of horses. Many horse owners tend to group according to gender, but there is little knowledge of the effects of having experience only with horses of the same gender on social interactions and spacing. The aim of this study was to test if horses kept in same gender groups showed a difference in social behaviour and spacing when compared to horses kept in mixed gender groups. Twenty-two Icelandic horses and ten horses of warious breeds, all of similar age, were grouped according to gender (mare or gelding) with one control group (mixed gender group) at the two different farms. Three batches of horses were tested and each batch was divided into groups giving 3-4 mares in one group, 3-4 geldings in one group and 2 mares + 2 geldings in one control group. Horses stayed in these groups for 4-6 weeks and social interactions was then recorded by a present observer using direct observations continuously for each group for 2 hours (1 hour in morning and 1 hour in afternoon) every day for 3 consecutive days. The actor and receiver of each interaction were also noted. In addition to this the space between each horse in the group was scored using instantaneous sampling every 10 minutes with categories: 1: 0-2 m, 2: 3-5 m, 3: 6-10 m, 4: 11- 20 m and 5: > 20 m apart. All data is given in % of total observations within each type of group. Prevalence of friendly interactions like play, play fighting, social grooming and head rest seemed to be larger in the gelding groups (mean proportion of total observations: 40 %) compared to the mare groups (31.1 %) and mixed gender groups (29.1 %). Gelding groups also seemed to spend more time performing other behaviours like mounting and nipping (2.8 %) compared to horses in mare groups (0.3 %) and mixed gender groups (0.6 %). Furthermore, the amount of aggressive interactions registered were lower for gelding groups (mean proportion of total observations: 44.4 %) than for mares (50.9 %) and mixed gender groups (53.2 %), but overall only 11 % of these aggressive encounters resulted in physical contact. Mares spaced themselves in closer proximity to one another (0-2 m) than both geldings and horses in mixed gender groups. Also, younger horses (1-2 year old) seemed to space themselves closer together than older horses. In conclusion, group composition according to gender probably affects social interactions, activity and spacing dynamics in the domestic horse. More results from such horse groups are still pending.


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Group size for housed ewes Grete H.M. Jørgensen, Synne Berg, Inger Lise Andersen and Knut E. Bøe. Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. There are about 1 million winterfed sheep in Norway and most of these are housed during the cold seasons (6-8 moths). In nature we find that free roaming sheep aggregate in different group sizes (from 7 to 60 individuals) with an average of approximately 8 individuals (Grubb and Jewell, 1966; Woolf et al, 1970). However, little is known about how different group sizes affect behaviour in housed sheep. The aim of this experiment was to investigate the effects of two different group sizes on maintenance behaviours and aggression in housed ewes. In the first 14 day period, 36 adult (2-6 years old) pregnant ewes of the Norwegian Dala breed were randomly assigned to four different groups of 9 ewes. In the second period (14 days) these ewes were then merged together in a large group of 36 ewes, maintaining the same space allowance of 1.5 m2 per animal. The experiment was later repeated using 36 different ewes, now keeping them together in the large group the first 14 day period, then splitting them into four groups of 9 ewes in the second period. Using 24 hour video recordings at day 1 and 14 in each treatment we scored the following mutually exclusive behaviours with instantaneous sampling every 10 minutes: eating, lying, queuing, walking/standing and other behaviours. In addition, the number of ewes lying against the wall and in the middle of the pen was scored at the same time. All instances of aggressive interactions were scored continuously the first 10 minutes of every hour during the 24 hour video recording (giving a total of 4 hours). The actor and receiver of the aggressive interaction were also noted. Ewes housed in large groups had a larger variation in lying time at day one (P<0.01), less synchronized lying (P<0.05) and eating behaviour (P<0.01), and spent less time queuing at the feed barrier (P<0.001) compared to in the small groups sizes (9). There were no effects of group size on aggressive interactions or feed intake. In conclusion, a larger group size decreased synchrony of lying and eating behaviour and reduced the time spent queuing in front of the feed barrier. It is possible that the aggression level in female sheep is more sensitive to changes in space allowance than to changes in group size per se.


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List of participants

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Abstracts of oral presentations

Friday 18th January 2008




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Differences in behavioural and physiological stress coping in farmed salmon; implications for welfare and production

Silje Kittilsen, Øyvind Øverli, Bjarne Braastad Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. Stress has frequently been connected to the concept of welfare. Although adaptive physiological stress responses are crucial for instance in vigilance and learning, severe and chronic stress reactions can be devastating to the individual and its welfare. Farmed fish are exposed to an environment they are not necessarily well adapted to, and which may be unpredictable and uncontrollable with several potential stressors. Stress responsiveness and the ability to cope with stress is therefore of great importance to farmed fish, and may contribute to both better welfare and growth. The aims of this study have been to investigate potential differences in stress responsiveness between family groups of farmed Atlantic salmon. Behavioural and physiological responses to confinement stress were monitored on an individual level in 91 juvenile salmon from 10 different families. Locomotor activity and water-borne cortisol secretion during acute stress were analysed. Mean values for each family were related to central parameters from the breeding company’s registers (Aquagen ASA), such as selection value for growth and disease resistance. Average family values for water-borne cortisol concentrations correlated positively with locomotor behaviour during confinement (R²=0,72, p=0,002), supporting the idea that more stress sensitive fish move more in the acute stress test. Hence, two non-invasive parameters yielded very similar results, and would appear equally suited to identify more stress-resistant families and strains of fish. Furthermore, our results also revealed a correlation between locomotor behaviour during confinement and disease resistance (IPN) (R²=0,58, p=0,01). Families that react with high amounts of locomotor activity to confinement show higher mortality in standard disease challenge tests. Aggressive behaviour when faced with a social stress situation was also investigated. The average number of aggressive acts seen in each family in a social encounter with a smaller conspecific was found to correlate in a curvilinear way to cardio somatic index (R²=0,98), an index reflective of heart size. Families with small relative heart size seem to show enhanced aggression, as do the one family with the biggest relative heart size in this study. A non-linear correlation was also detected between aggression and the corresponding mid parent selection-value for growth (R²=0,62). Offspring of both the most slow-growing and the most fast-growing parents are characterized by enhanced aggression towards an intruder. It appears that non-invasive behavioural tests performed in the laboratory have considerable predictive value regarding how the same families will perform in the full scale breeding program. Selection could create basis for more stress tolerant individuals. This might be beneficial for the aquaculture industry both when it comes to production parameters like growth, and individual welfare criteria.


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Circardian cortisol pattern and the impact of transportation on the activation the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis in

dairy goats

Mariana Carvalho1&2; Egil Simensen1; Nina Fjerdingby1; Stig Larsen1 and Adroaldo Zanella1. 1Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Department of Production Animal Clinical Sciences. 2Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science College, Sao Paulo State University (UNESP), Botucatu-SP, Brazil. Previous work demonstrated that dairy goats showed a significant variability in milk somatic cell counts. High somatic cell counts have a negative effect on milk quality and it is a serious concern to the goat industry. We hypothesized that the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis contributes towards the variability in somatic cell counts in domestic goats. In this study we characterized the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis in 20 lactating domestic goats at basal levels in location 1 (summer farm in the mountain, region Folldalen) and location 2 (winter housing at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås). We also monitored cortisol levels before, during and after two hours of transportation. Transportation occurred during the transfer of animals from location 1 to location 2, a distance of about 380 km. At location 1, during seven days, saliva and milk samples were collected twice a day. Behavioural observations were carried out during milking. During the transportation day saliva samples were collected before loading (08:10h), after loading (10:40h), half-way through the journey (15:40 h), at arrival on location 2 (18:15h) and two hours post-arrival at location 2 (20:15h). Milk samples were collected before transportation (location 1) and after transportation (location 2). At location 2, saliva and milk samples were collected twice a day (morning and afternoon) during seven days. Saliva was collected by presenting cotton buds to the animals and the animals were encouraged to chew. Cotton buds were centrifuged, saliva samples were collected and stored at -200C until assay. Cortisol levels were assayed using an ELISA technique. Area Under the Curve (AUC) was calculated by using the trapezoidal method. Changes within the group and changes between periods were performed using Analysis of Variance with repeated measurements. Both in the periods before and after the transportation cortisol levels were significantly higher (p<0.05) in the morning compared to the evening. During transportation cortisol levels increased significantly from 08:10 to 10:40 (p<0.01), from 10:40 to 15:40 (p<0.01) and from 15:40 to 18:15 (p<0.05). Additionally, salivary cortisol was found significantly reduced from 18:15 to 20:05 (p<0.01). Previous works have failed to identify circadian patterns in cortisol secretion in goats. The stress free nature of the saliva collection allowed us to demonstrate the significant differences between morning and afternoon cortisol levels. In addition we demonstrated that transportation is a powerful activator of the hypothalamic-pituitary in domestic goats. We are currently conducting analysis to assess the relationship between the activation of the hypothalamic-adrenal-axis and somatic cell counts in goats.


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Veterinary students’ attitudes of pain in cattle. Camilla Kielland, Eystein Skjerve, Adroaldo J. Zanella Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Department of Production Animal Clinical Sciences, P.O. Box 8146 Dep, NO-0033 Oslo, Norway. Attitudes towards pain in animals, and the consequent use of pain medication to treat painful conditions, have been previously studied. Age and gender of respondents influenced the attitudes towards pain in most previously published studies. The decision to treat or not to treat painful conditions and treatment protocols adopted gives the same patterns. Female surgeons assessed conditions as more painful and are more likely to give analgesics than male surgeons. Other contributing factors might be experience, knowledge and education. Our prediction is that veterinary students’ assessment of pain in cattle will be influenced by their attitudes measured using a novel pain and attitudes instrument. We hypothesise that attitudes towards pain in cattle are measurable using a novel picture based instrument. We also predict that demographic variables such as gender, age, number of siblings, test method, enrolment year, place where they grew up, how much experience they had working with cattle or what speciality they want to choose at the end of the veterinary degree will influence their responses and shape their attitudes. This study was designed to increase our understanding of factors which may influence attitudes towards pain, and also to increase the student’s awareness regarding the subject of pain in cattle. We piloted the instrument surveying 300 veterinary students. With two identical surveys we tested the hypothesis that a visual analogue scale (VAS) (n=150) would provide similar pain scores compared to the data obtained using numeral rating scale (NRS) (n=150). Furthermore the survey was used to assess how pattern analysis could be used to divide a population into distinct groups, and finally we interrogated which attitudes student’s have towards pain in cattle, and what factors influences their assessments. The response rate was 57% (n=171). Gender ratio in the two different surveys did not differ. Comparing NRS and VAS using graphical examinations of the data indicated a similar pattern among the variables. Completed link cluster analysis revealed 2 distinct groups within the VAS and NRS, with a much more even distribution with VAS. Therefore VAS was chosen in the further analyses. Through simple linear regression model it was found that the average pain score for each student was mainly influenced by gender (females scored 0.8 higher than males) out of the three tested explanatory variables: gender, test method and enrolment year. Factors as age, place where they grew up, how much experience they had working with cattle or what speciality they want to chose in their profession, did not influence the average score. There was a tendency suggesting that the median score was slightly higher with students who grew up in a city.


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Transmission of adaptive stress induced behaviour from parents to offspring in chickens

D. Nätt & P. Jensen Linköping University, Department of Biology, SE-581 83, Linköping, Sweden We have previously shown that behavioural effects of a chronic stressor can be transmitted from a domesticated chicken parent to its offspring through a genome-wide gene regulatory mechanism and expressed through behaviour. The aim of this study was to verify this finding and to study the possible adaptive value of such transmission. We hypothesized that environmental uncertainty may cause chickens to be more biased towards predictable food and more inclined to defend this food against flock mates, and to transmit this behaviour to the next generation. Commercial Hyline chicken parents were raised in an irregular light rhythm (stress treatment) or in control conditions (12:12 light:dark rhytm) and tested for spatial learning, food competitiveness and food resource motivation. Stress raised animals (n = 15) had significantly poorer spatial learning capabilities (T-maze), were more competitive (pair wise competition test) and had higher preference for a known food resource (foraging arena) over an unfamiliar, hidden one than birds from the control group (n = 15). Offspring of stressed birds, raised without parental contact and under regular light rhythm (n = 35), showed similar behavioural differences compared to offspring of the control parents (n = 35). Chickens of stressed parents were also significantly heavier than those of control parents at adult age and showed higher preference for eating high energy novel food (preference test) over familiar food. In all tests General Linear Models were used, except when testing for competitiveness where a Paired-sample T-tests were used. All significant results indicate at least P < 0.05. Our findings suggest that stressed parents prepare their offspring by transmitting behaviour which affects their food choice and feeding motivation. This might be an adaptive response in an unpredictable environment.


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The effect of time left alone at home on dog behaviour

Therese Rehn and Linda J. Keeling

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Dept of Animal Environment and Health, Box 7038, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden.

The situation for dogs and their owners has changed during the last decades. Many owners, because of their working hours, see no other alternative than to leave their dog home alone for most of the day. People find this acceptable unless the dog develops separation problems. But even if the dog does not demonstrate obvious behavioural problems, it is still necessary to investigate the effect of time left alone at home on dog behaviour and welfare. Twelve privately owned dogs, without any history of obvious separation related behavioural problems, participated in the study. All dogs were video-recorded at three different occasions when left alone in their home environment (T1 = 0.5 hours, T2 = 2 hours and T3 = 4 hours). The time between these occasions varied, but the minimum time between two recordings was 24h. Video-recording started ten minutes before the owner left the house and continued until ten minutes after the owner returned, so that interactions between dog and owner as well as behaviour during separation could be studied. Data on heart rate (HR) were collected within the same time period in each treatment. Only the length of time differed between treatments. As well as analyzing behaviours separately, behaviours were also grouped together and defined as new variables; physically active included all non-stationary behaviours. If the dog was stationary but still alert or focused on something in the environment it was regarded as mentally active. Vocal included all kinds of vocalization and arousal grouped behaviours suggested to indicate positive or negative arousal, such as lip licking, stretching, body shaking and yawning (Beerda et al, 1998). Behavioural observations showed that when separated from their owner, all dogs spent most of their total time lying down in all treatments (T1=92 ± 2.8; T2=97 ± 1.7; T3=95 ± 1.9, % of time ± SE). Results showed a higher frequency (P=0.018) of shaking in T3 compared to the other treatments just before owner arrival. The variables arousal and physical activity were also significantly more frequent (P=0.0026 and P=0.017, respectively) in T3 compared to the other treatments just before the owner arrived. Dogs showed more greeting behaviour (P=0.046) and interacted more with their owners (P=0.039) after being separated for longer periods of time. Interactions initiated by the owners at reunion did not differ (P=0.579) between the treatments. These findings showed that dogs displayed different behaviours according to the time separated from their owners, regardless of owner behaviour. Intensities of mental arousal and physical activity were also higher for a longer period of time after the owner returned as length of separation increased. Mean heart rate was also significantly higher (P=0.048) in T3 at the owner’s return compared to the other treatments. According to the results in this study the time length of separation, even within reasonable time frames, has an effect on dog behaviour and should be considered in the welfare aspect of pet dogs. Reference: Beerda, B., Schilder, M. B. H., van Hooff, J. A. R. A. M., de Vries, H. W. & Mol, J. A. 1998.

Behavioural, saliva cortisol and heart rate responses to different types of stimuli in dogs. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 58: 365-381.


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Animal-assisted therapy with farm animals

Bente Berget1, Øivind Ekeberg2, Bjarne O. Braastad1

1 Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences 2 University of Oslo, Department of Behavioural Sciences in Medicine During the last decade, an increasing number of persons with mental disorders work on a farm with farm animals as part of their therapy, in rehabilitation, and work training. This is called Green Care, a concept which is not restricted to the use of animals, but which also includes effects of plants, gardens, forests, and the landscape. When farm animals are part of a Green care program, it will be of importance to ensure that the animals used are socialized on different people. Despite these aspects, farm animals can be stroked, people can talk to them, and they may be good transitional beings like pets are.

To date there is only one randomized controlled follow-up study of AAT with farm animals on psychiatric patients (Berget 2006; Berget et al. 2007). The study examined effects on self-efficacy, coping ability, quality of life, anxiety and depression of a three-month intervention with farm animals among adult psychiatric patients. The health outcome measures were based on validated standardized instruments, and the main diagnoses were affective disorders, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and schizophrenia. The patients worked with dairy cattle (mainly) twice a week for three hours. Among the 90 included patients, 41 completed the intervention (68 %) and 28 completed in the control group (93 %). The patients showed increased intensity and exactness of the work with the animals by the end of the intervention compared to during the first half. Although there were no effects of treatment during the intervention, anxiety was lower and self-efficacy higher at follow-up six months after the end of the intervention compared with baseline and at the end of the intervention for the treatment group, but not for the controls. Similarly, coping only increased in the treatment group between baseline and follow-up. Among diagnostic groups, the patients with affective disorders showed significant increase in self-efficacy and quality of life during follow-up. Even if the health outcome effects were rather moderate, it is positive that some were found, based on the limited sample size and the rather unspecific intervention. In addition, the patients had had their symptoms for many years, which make it more unlikely to achieve a rapid and great improvement.

Berget, B. 2006. Animal-assisted therapy: effects on persons with psychiatric disorders working with farm animals. Philosophiae Doctor Thesis 2006:20. Berget, B, Skarsaunet I, Ekeberg Ø, Braastad BO 2007. Humans with mental disorders working with farm animals. A behavioral study. Occupational Therapy in Mental Health: 23: 101-117.


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Keeping riding horses in groups – are there really any problems with injuries, and are such horses difficult to

catch? Kjersti E. Fremstad1, Grete H.M. Jørgensen1, Cecilie M. Mejdell2 and Knut E. Bøe1. 1Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. 2National Veterinary Institute, Department of Animal Health, P.O. Box 8156 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway. One common myth around keeping horses in groups is that horses injure themselves and each other to a large extent; another is that when horses are kept in groups they are much more difficult to catch for training purposes. The aim of this experiment was to examine riding horses kept in groups for injuries and to describe problems related to separating a horse from a group for riding or training purposes. A total of 20 different horse groups with a minimum of 5 horses in each group were studied on 14 farms in Norway, from June to October 2007. The 100 horses tested ranged in age from 1 to 26 years and represented mares, geldings and stallions. On each farm, information about the facilities and each horse was recorded using detailed questionnaires that the stable or horse owner filled out. Forty-six different horse owners were represented in this study. We screened each horse for injuries and blemishes using categories from 1 to 5, where category 1 involved a small area with hair loss only and category 5 involved a serious injury that could lead to long term loss of function. In each group the horse owner was asked to go into the group, approach his/her horse, halter it and lead it out trough the gate (later referred to as a test). This procedure was video taped and any other horse’s behaviour towards the human was recorded directly by a present observer. The data is presented for all the horse farms together. In this study, there were no severe injuries (category 4 or 5) on the 100 horses examined that could be related to the horses being kept in groups. A total of 28 horses showed no injuries at all, while seventy-eight percent of all injuries were superficial blemishes involving hair loss only (category 1). Only one of the hundred horses moved away from the handler when approached, thus not being haltered at first attempt. In ten of the tests, other horses approached the handler in a non- threatening manner and this was the highest level of interference recorded. Seventy-seven percent of the horse owners participating in this study rated the group housing situation as unproblematic, while 23 % rated it as fine. Management and facility factors were linked to most problems reported by the horse owners. In conclusion, keeping riding horses in groups seems to give few welfare problems related to horse injuries and can be considered relative safe for the human in suitable facilities with good management.


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Akre, Kathrine, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Andersen, Inger Lise, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003,1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Bakken, Morten, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Bassler, Arnd, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7038, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Berget, Bente, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Dept. of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Borsheim, Linn, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Braastad, Bjarne O., Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Dept. of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Bøe, Knut Egil, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Carvalho, Mariann, Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Postboks 8146 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Duve, Linda Rosager, University of Aarhus, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Health, Welfare and Nutrition, Blichers Allé 20, Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected] Eriksen, Marit Skog, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Fremstad, Kjersti Elisabeth, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Fröberg, Sofie, Dep. of Animal Nutrition and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Kungsängen Research Centre, 753 23 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Furnes Bagley, Marlene, Fagsenteret for fjørfe, Boks 218 Økern, 0510 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]


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Gaudernack Tønnesen, Hege, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Dept. of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Graunke, Katharina, Technical University Munich, Germany, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Skara, Sweden, Weyarner Str. 19, 81547 München, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] Hansen, Berit, Bioforsk Nord Tjøtta, 8860 Tjøtta, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Hansen, Inger, Bioforsk Nord Tjøtta, 8860 Tjøtta, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Hartmann, Elke, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Box 7038, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Hauge, Hilde, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Henriksen, Britt I. F., Bioforsk Økologisk, Tingvoll gard, 6630 Tingvoll, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Hild, Sophie, Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Production Medicine Department, PO Box 8146 dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Hovland, Anne Lene, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, POBox 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Hyyppä, Seppo, MTT, Equines, Varsanojantie 63, 32100 Ypäjä, Finland. E-mail: [email protected] Jensen, Margit Bak, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Aarhus, Department of Animal Health, Welfare andNutrition, Blichers Allé 20, Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected] Jensen, Per, IFM Biology, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Jensen, Trine, University of Aarhus, Faculty of agricultural sciences, Blichers Allé 20, 8830 Tjele, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected] Johansen, Ida Beitnes, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Jørgensen, Grete Helen Meisfjord, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Dept. of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Karlsson, Anna-Carin, Linköping University, IFM/Biology, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]


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Keeling, Linda, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7038, SE 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Kielland, Camilla, Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Postboks 8146 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Kittilsen, Silje, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Koistinen, Tarja, University of Kuopio, Department of Biosciences, Po Box 1627, 70211 Kuopio, Finland E-mail: [email protected] Kristensen, Helle, University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Life Sciences, Grønnegårdsvej 8, DK-1870 Frederiksberg C, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected] Ladewig, Jan, Copenhagen University - Life sciences, Grønnegårdsvej 8, 1870 Frederiksberg C, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected] Lidfors, Lena, Department of Animal Environment and Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O.Box 234, SE532 23 Skara, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Lund, Vonne, Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Postboks 8146, 0033 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Mejdell, Cecilie Marie, National Veterinary Institute, P.O.Box 8156 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Moe, Randi, Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, ProMed, Postboks 8146 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Niskanen, Suvi, University of Helsinki, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences. P.O. Box 56, FI-00014, Finland. E-mail: [email protected] Nätt, Daniel, Linköpings University, IFM Biology, 58183 Linköping, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Pedersen, Lene Juul, Århus University, Research Center Foulum, Blichers Allé 20, Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected] Ramos, Andre, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Depto BEG, CCB, 88040900 Florianopolis, Brazil. E-mail: [email protected] Raussi, Satu, MTT Agrofood Research Finland, Vakolantie 55, FIN-03400 Vihti, Finland. E-mail: [email protected]


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Rehn, Therese, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Dept of Animal Environment and Health, Box 7038, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Rundgren, Margareta, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Dept. Animal Nutrition and Management, P.O. Box 7024, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Ruud, Lars Erik, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Schroeer, Anne, Norwegian School of Vet Science, ProdMed, P.O. Box 8146 Dep., 0033 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Shaw, Jenny Carolyn , Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway . E-mail: [email protected] Slagsvold, Tore, University of Oslo, Department of Biology, Boks 1072 Blindern, 316 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Sondresen, Tone, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Dept. of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Stubsjøen,Solveig Marie, Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, ProMed, Postboks 8146 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Särkijärvi, Susanna, MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Equine Research, Varsanojantie 63, FIN-32100 Ypäjä, Finland. E-mail: [email protected] Søndergaard, Eva, Aarhus University, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Dep. of Animal Health, Welfare and Nutrition, Blichers Alle 20, P.O. Box 50, 8830 Tjele, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected] Thingnes, Signe Lovise, Norsvin, Fiolvegen 41, 2322 Ridabu, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Thomsen, Liat Romme, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Aarhus, Blichers Allé 20, 8830 Tjele, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected] Vasdal, Guro, Norwegian University of Life Science, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Science, PO Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Vladic, Tomislav, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Environment and Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, P.O. Box 234, SE- 532 23 Skara, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]


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Wellman, Cara L, Indiana University, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. E-mail: [email protected] Wirén, Anna, Linköping University, IFM/Biology, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Zanella, Adroaldo Jose, Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, ProMed, Postboks 8146 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Øverli, Øyvind, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]

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