Environmental Challenges Flashcards
What are environmental challenges in nature?
Intrinsic and natural.
What are environmental challenges in captivity?
- Few or none.
- Too many.
- Good or bad?
Why do animals explore?
- To gather information about the environment necessary for survival.
- map building
- habituation - To exert control over the environment.
- Animals voluntarily seek challenges.
How does environmental challenges affect behavior?
They are an integral part of behavioral development and well being.
What can happen in the absence of environmental challenges?
- May engender apathy.
- An enduring sense of boredom.
- Increased risk of stereotypic behavior.
What is the definition of enrichment?
IMPORTANT - KNOW THIS
Environmental enrichment is the alteration of animals’ microenvironments to provide them with the opportunity to perform species-specific behaviors that we perceive as positive, while reducing abnormal behaviors.
What happens to animals raised in barren environments?
- Decreased brain weights.
- May be overwhelmed by novelty or change.
- May redirect exploratory behavior on inappropriate objects (tail biting piglets).
What happens to animals raised in enriched environments?
- Investigate novel objects more thoroughly.
- Escape from predatory attacks more quickly.
- Have more versatile behavioral repertoires.
- More flexible in dealing with environmental challenges.
What are the extremes of environmental stimuli?
- Too little = apathy.
- Too much = fear.
What does the effect of environmental stimuli depend on?
Animals previous experiences.
-ex: pigs raised in barren environment may stress and die when overloaded with stimuli during transport.
What are the environmental differences between birds raised in enriched environments vs barren environments?
Enriched
- Quicker to approach novel objects.
- Shorter bouts of interaction with object.
- Reduced fear of strangers.
What is contrafreeloading?
Animals will work to earn their food even when they can obtain it for free.
What abnormal behaviors can a barren environment lead to?
- Sterotypies: repetitive, “functionless” behavior.
- Self-injurious: hair pulling, self biting, mutilation.
- Redirected: lack of foraging opportunity can cause tail biting in pigs.
What affect can a barren environment have on the health of an animal?
Diseases of captivity, not seen in the wild.
What is stereotypy?
- Persistent, unvarying repetition of seemingly functionless behavior.
- Displayed by over 85 million farm, laboratory and zoo animals worldwide.
ex: pacing polar bear in a zoo.
What are the three different types of stereotypy?
- Oral
- cribbing in horses.
- tongue rolling in cattle. - Locomotor
- pacing in confined animals.
- tail chasing in dogs. - Hallucinatory
- fly biting in dogs.
- shadow chasing in dogs.
What can happen along with stereotypies?
Most (~ 68%) situations that cause stereotypies also decrease welfare.
What can happen to non-stereotyping or low-stereotyping individuals in sub-optimal environments?
They could well have have the poorest welfare.
- passive coping: inactive, seen in submissives.
- active coping: active, seen in confident animals.
What are stereotypies are warning sign of?
- Potential suffering, but never use as the sole index of welfare.
- non-stereotyping or low-stereotyping individuals should not be overlooked or assumed to be fairing well.
What should you not do when addressing stereotypies?
-Assume enrichments are failures if behavior isn’t immediately reduced.
-Try to reduce only with punishment or physical prevention.
~must treat their underlying motivation for behavior.
How are stereotypies treated?
- Environment enrichment: preferred treatment.
- Reinforcement of alternative behaviors.
- Genetic selection: high and low fp (feather picking) poultry in 7 to 10 generations.
- Pharmacology: serotonin enhancing drugs, opiate antagonists.
- Punishment: remote, rarely used alone.
Sometimes stereotypies cannot?
go away!
What is SIB?
Self Injurious Behavior
- hair pulling
- self biting
How common is SIB in monkeys?
About 10% of captive, individually-housed monkeys engage in SIB
When does SIB occur in primates?
It occurs in emotionally disturbing situations, over which the subject has no control.
- approached by fear inducing personnel.
- disruption of daily routine.
- removal of companion.
How is SIB treated?
- Environment Enrichment: social companionship.
- Foraging Toys: seen to increase SIB in some studies due to arousal. Decrease motor stereotypies.
- Medication: decrease arousal. Interferes with research. Recurrence of behavior.
What is redirected behavior?
Normal behavior is thwarted, now behavior is performed on substitute.
- tail biting in piglets.
- cross sucking in calves.
- feather pecking in chickens.
How is redirected behavior treated?
- Management of Animals
- problem of captivity.
- natural (edinburg pig park) - Address Motivation
- provide oral stimulation.
- straw for piglets.
- foraging for chickens. - Amputation of Body Part
- doesn’t address motivation.
- tail docking piglets, may bite ears or stump.
- beak trimming chickens, prevents damage.
What constitutes enrichment?
- Need to know natural behavior for species involved.
- Consider all the senses used by species.
Enrichment items are?
- Safe and inexpensive.
- If reusable, should be durable and washable.
How should enrichment items be used?
-Appropriate to species specific behavior.
~ex: immobile vs moving carcass for cheetah.
-Give time to use.
~if never had enrichment, may be fearful initially.
-Rotate.
~some animals habituate to toy & need novelty periodically.
-Plentiful if animals housed in groups.
~chimps fought over termite mound.
How can you provide enrichment for horses?
- Foraging Opportunities: spread out hay, multiple types of hay, toys.
- Social Companionship: can be an unbreakable mirror, or even a goat.
How do you provide enrichment for pigs?
-Law in Brittan in 2003, farmers to put a toy in every pigsty or face up to 3 months in jail.
-“Environment Enrichment” by providing manipulable material.
~footballs, basketballs, bowling balls.
~chains, straw.
-The important thing is to see pigs happy in their environment & they like to forage with their noses.
What was the setup for the experiment on enrichment for chickens?
- 2 different types of feeders.
- Feed troughs w/o balls or w/ 7 tennis balls to hide feed.
- Commercial white leghorn type hens, 4 per cage.
- Experimental period from 22 to 32 weeks of age.
What was seen in the experiment on enrichment for chickens?
Birds with Balls
- more time prefeeding behavior (extension of the neck over the trough, or pecking at the balls).
- more time thrusting (pushing other birds aside to eat).
- less feather damage 27 weeks, but not at 32 weeks.
What was egg production& body weight like in the 2 groups during the experiment on enrichment for chickens?
It was the same.
How do you provide enrichment for pet birds?
-T shirt bags, fruit cage, toy box, treat basket.
-Cotton spring rope, plastic diamonds, plastic coil, swinging ladder.
-Tissue boxes, paperback books, 2x4 untreated.
-Foraging
~tree
~rocks in bowls
~move bowls
~skewers
~paper balls
How do you provide enrichment for cats?
-Social Companionship (human or conspecific)
-Foraging Opportunities
~food balls
~hide food
~fishing for cats
-Toys
~paper balls or bags
~ball in bathtub
~wand toys
-Scratching Posts & Cat Trees
How do you provide enrichment for dogs?
-Social Companionship ~play dates, dog parks, scheduled play -Foraging ~food balls, digging pit, treat hunt -Training ~basic, agility, breed dependent
TV FOR DOGS
What were the 5 types of stimulation used in this experiment?
- Control Condition (no visual stim)
- Blank TV Screen
- Moving Images of Conspecifics
- Moving Images of Interspecifics
- Moving Images of Humans
TV FOR DOGS
How long was the study done?
4 hours per day for 5 days, with an intervening period of two days between conditions.
TV FOR DOGS
What was the outcome?
- Little time looking at tv monitors (10.8%).
- Significantly more time looking at moving images vs blank screen.
- Images of conspecifics were more likely to attract the dogs to the front of the kennels vs blank screen.
- More time spent at front of enclosures.
- Interest in all experimental conditions declined over time.
- All conditions encouraged significantly less vocalization & movement than control condition.
TV FOR DOGS
What was the conclusion drawn from the experiment?
Behavior of kenneled dogs is influenced by visual sitmualtion in the form of tv programs.
TOYS FOR DOGS
What were the conditions of this experiment?
- -5 toys were used (squeaky ball, non-squeaky ball, nylabone chew, tug rope, and boomer ball).
- Each toy given for six days.
TOYS FOR DOGS
What happened during this experiment?
- Spent relatively little time (<8%) of the overall observation time playing w/the toys.
- Preference for the nylabone chew over the other toys.
- Interest in toys waned over time.
- Habituation to nylabone was the slowest.
TOYS FOR DOGS
What was the conclusion dram from the experiment?
- Welfare of kenneled dogs may be slightly enhanced by addition of toys to their kennels.
- Toys should be rotated to encourage exploration and reduce habituation.
How do you provide enrichment for rodents?
- Group Housing
- Nesting Material
- Red Tinted Nest Box
- Wood Blocks
- Running Wheel
- PVC Pipe
- Plastic Balls
Why do you provide enrichment for laboratory rodents?
-Stress is a potential variable in studies.
~decreasing variability allows for less animals to be used.
~decreasing variability increases validity of study.
-Environmental enrichment can reduce stress in lab rats.
-Measurable parameters linked to stress are:
~unstable blood chem
~abnormal organ size (particularly adrenal glands)
~incidence of fighting.
Conclusions to Environmental Enrichment
- If animals are kept in captivity, humans are obligated to enhance life.
- Enrichment makes for more behaviorally sound animals.
- Once abnormal behavior starts, enrichment may not alleviate it.
