ANIMAL WELFARE (Feeding Behaviour) Flashcards
Feeding behaviour:
-any action that is directed toward the procurement of nutrients
-distinct appetitive and consummatory phase
Feeding behaviour model (sterotypies):
- Causal factors leads to
- Motivation leads to
- Appetitive behaviour (if don’t eat, then increases motivation)
- Consummatory behaviour (decrease motivation and causal factors)
Optimality:
-based on energy (in the past)
-multifactorial control (past and now)
-overall fitness (now)
Based on energy (optimality):
-mechanisms for the optimal allocation of time and energy expenditures
Multifactorial control (optimality):
-minimise the total discomfort generated by several signals from various body systems
Overall fitness (optimality):
-a function of its contribution to survival, growth, and reproduction over the organism’s lifetime
Many disease or painful procedures RESULT IN:
-alterations of feeding and/or ruminating patterns
Various health issues (obesity, rumen acidosis) CAUSED BY:
-animal’s inability to develop accurate associations between the food content in its diet and their post-ingestive consequences
Causal factors:
-interpretations of external changes and internal states of the body that serve as inputs to the decision making centre
External factors:
-surroundings
-food characteristics
Internal factors:
-previous experiences
-body signals
Previous experiences:
-initiate feeding
-efficiency of finding food
-rate of ingestion
*decrease: weird smell, or the less dominant animal will wait for the others
*increase behaviours when the feed truck goes by the pen
Body signals:
-visual, taste and olfactory input
-hormones (leptin, ghrelin, amylin)
-gastrointestinal receptors
-liver receptors
Gastrointestinal receptors (body signals):
-mechanosensitivity tension and motility
Liver receptors (body signals):
-glucose
-nitrogenous compounds
-osmolality
Conditioned taste aversion (examples):
-using ruminants for weed control in agroforestry is more sustainable than herbicides
-use Lithium Chloride for training livestock to avoid specific foods or plants
>exposed sheep to the leaves of the vineyard and made them associate them with nausea
»lasted for about 3 months
Efficiency of conditioned taste aversion depends on:
-food novelty
-product and dose used to create aversion
-availability of alternative feedstuff
-animal species
-breed
-age
Food characteristics:
-amount and type of grain and forage
-feed additives
-while foraging
Amount and type of grain and forage:
-particle size/effective fiber
-degradability/digestibility
Feed additives:
-flavours
-monensin
-sodium bicarbonate
While feeding (food characteristics):
-spatial distribution
-abundance
-ease of prehension
-palatability
-filling effect
Feeding management:
-feeding frequency
-feed bunk management
-consistency of feeding
Feeding frequency:
-more deliveries=more stable consumption
Feed bunk management:
-ad libitum (as much or as often as)
-clean bunk
-restricted
Consistency of feeding:
-irregular schedules (delay, health issues…) may cause animals to ingest larger quantities of feed during a short time
Surroundings:
-animals graze at faster rates when they know that the herbage available is limited
>can also eat more
Automatic feeding monitoring systems:
-mostly for research
-a good way to have animals housed together, but be able to monitor the individuals feed intake
-negative: interfering with the behaviour (ex. restrictive, increasing competition=can change feeding behaviours)
-visits and meals
Meals:
-multiple visits over a short period of time
Parameters that can be used to assess food consumption:
-meal frequency (meals/d)
-feeding time (min/d)
-meal length (min/meal)
-feeding rate (kg/min)
-meal size (kg/meal)
-feed intake (kg/d)
