7. Rest, Locomotion, Eating, Drinking - M2 Flashcards
All animals show daily rhythmic patterns of behaviour which include:
Awake, drowsing and sleeping
- Sleeping can include both slow wave and paradoxical sleep
What are normal sleep patterns important for?
- Animal well-being
- Sleep is essential for normal physiological fxn
What are resting and sleep governed by?
Timing controls
What is the purpose of resting and sleep?
Restorative
- allows metabolic recoveries and conservation of energies
Sleep is a system of…
Passive behaviour
Postures and movement of CATTLE at rest
- During the day, rest in STERNAL RECUMBENCY while ruminating
- May rest without ruminating
- While not actively grazing, may stand at rest without ruminating; loafing time is variable, but short in healthy cattle
- In daylight lateral recumbency is less than 1hr
When REM sleeping, how are cattle positioned?
Usually lying down (sternal recumbent) with heads turned back into their flank
Ruminants have extensive periods of drowsiness usually associated with what?
Rumination
- Drowsy state for about 7-8hrs/day divided into 20 periods or more that precede and follow sleep
How are rumination and sleep inversely related?
Sternal resting increases but sleep decreases as the percentage of roughage in the diet increases
- more forage = more rumination = more drowsiness = less sleep
What have normal sleep patterns of sleep been used as an indication of?
Stress free husbandry
Disinclination to lie at rest in horses is seen with _________ and cattle with ___________
- orthopedic conditions
- hardware disease
What is Tonic Immobility?
- A state of locomotor economy, shown particularly in an unwillingness to make responses which involve complex, coordinated bodily movements
- An apparent absence of coordinated responses in an animal without associated physical impairment
What are 8 considerations for flooring?
- Slats vs solid flooring
- Bedding material
- Notching and grooving
- Mats
- Wire or plastic mesh
- Elevated vs non-elevated
- Heated vs non-heated
- Perches
What behaviours can flooring influence?
- Resting
- Mounting
- Lameness
- Slips/falls
- Play
- Social interactions
- Dominance hierarchies
- Space for movement
Respiration is tied to…
Movement!
- O2 consumption increases linearly in a running animal
- Net cost of running is constant for each species (decreases with increasing body size)
Kinetic behaviours have…
Patterns, rhythms and phases in their expression
The system of kinetic behaviour has…
Range, rhythm and pattern
- innate in origin, being a feature of the species
- innate kinetic drive is modified by diverse factors
What is ambulatory kinesis incorporated into?
Grazing
- grazing rhythms described as kinetic rhythms
- kinesis is a prominent component of play behaviour
What is Taxis?
- Locomotion either directly towards or away from a source of stimulation
- Locomotory behaviour involving a steering reaction
- The spatial correction movement resulting in orientation
What is Thigmotaxis (Thigmotropism)?
Behaviour revealing a drive to make and maintain close bodily contact with an associate animal
What is termed a ‘gait’?
In locomotion, when the limbs act synchronously in any one of a variety of patterns
What are 2 forms of gait patterns?
- Symmetrical
- The movements of limbs on one side repeat those of the other side, but half a stride later
- eg. walk, pace, trot - Asymmetrical
- The limbs from one side do not repeat those of the other
- ev. cantor gallop, lope and rotary gallop
What is a stride?
The full cycle of movement of a leg during the support propulsion and flight phases
What is stride length?
The distance covered between successive imprints of the same hoof
If each limb strikes the ground separately the gait will be a…
4-beat gait
- If diagonal limb pairs (eg trot), the gait is 2-beat
- Cantor is a 3-beat gait in waltz time
- Gallop resembles the cantor but since it is faster, it has an extra “floating phase”
What are 13 factors influencing feeding behaviour?
- Circadian characteristics
- Social factors
- Biological sensors
- Rate of ingestion
- Rate of digestion
- Nutrient density or dilution
- Palatability
- Intake depressants
- Intake stimulation
- Feeding interference
- Food selectivity
- Experience
- Type of animal
Consideration: herbivores vs omnivores; ruminants vs monogastrics
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: Type of animal
Consideration: daily feeding patterns are affected by environmental conditions such as season and characteristics of food supply
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: circadian characteristics
Consideration: competition and related dominance characteristics; feeder space and operational characteristics; pasture and rangeland
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: social factors
Consideration: taste and olfactory sensors; chemoreceptors for plasma glucose levels, insulin production and cholecystokinin
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: biological sensors
Consideration: reflects animal’s capacity to find and consume food; ratio of fibrous feeds to higher-energy concentrates such as grains
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: rate of ingestion
Consideration: influences feeding frequency and duration; greater variation in ruminants
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: rate of digestion
Consideration: reduced nutrient density leads to animals eating more total feed; limited by capacity of digestive tract
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: nutrient density or dilution
Consideration: Rejection of off-flavoured foods; preferences for sweet flavours; salt intake impacts as well
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: palatability
Consideration: achieving BW set point; high environmental temp; high estrogen level; gut distention
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: intake depressants
Consideration High lactation yield; high grow rate; cooler temps; implants
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: intake stimulation
Consideration: climatic influences, presence of predators, spoilage, disease
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: feeding interference
Consideration: ability to select higher-energy, more nutritious foods
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: food selectivity
Consideration: learning and follow others in feeding (eg location of resources)
Factor influencing feeding behaviour: experience
What 8 factors affect grazing behaviour?
- Animal species
- anatomical differences - Forage quality and quantity
- interact to minimize grazing time and distance covered - Time of day
- graze longer periods right after dawn and late evening, shorter period midday; patterns altered by thermal conditions - Season and weather conditions
- cold reduces early and late day grazing periods; heat reduces or eliminates midday grazing - Insect annoance
- infestation of flies shortens grazing times and increases time spent standing in water if available - Scheduling
- milking times, riding times, and other management schedules - Efficiency of harvesting
- stage of plant growth, physical condition, travel distance, etc - Plant population composition
- animals select safest, most nutritious plants and plant parts; overgrazing and high animal density limit selection
Water
- Accounts for 50-80% of the animal body
- Relates to acid-base balance and heat regulation
- Requirements increase with heat and lactation
- In sheep and cattle, a significant relationship exists between dry intake and water intake
- Pigs and poultry may increase water intake if feed restricted
*Go to notes to look at specie specific water req
