Measuring Motivation for Appetitive Behaviour: Food-Restricted Broiler Breeder Chickens Cross a Water Barrier to Forage in an Area of Wood Shavings without Food
Measuring Motivation for Appetitive Behaviour: Food-Restricted Broiler Breeder Chickens Cross a Water Barrier to Forage in an Area of Wood Shavings without Food
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0102322
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发表时间：
2014-07-28
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
D'Eath, Rick B.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dixon, Laura M.;Brocklehurst, Sarah;D'Eath, Rick B.
肉鸡饲养者（肉鸡的父母）被选择为快速生长，如果随意喂养就会变得肥胖。为了避免这种情况，并保持良好的健康和生殖能力，它们的饲料被限制在它们可以自由进食的三分之一左右。因此，他们会经历长期饥饿，并表现出可能表明压力和沮丧的异常行为模式。衡量饥饿感的一种方法是观察鸟类为了获得更多或不同种类的食物而工作的程度，比如啄钥匙。然而，饲料奖励的视觉、嗅觉和反馈改变了环境，可能人为地提高了喂养动机。为了避免这种情况，我们在一种装置中对肉鸡饲养者进行了测试，在这种装置中，他们可以通过穿越一条长度和深度增加的水跑道来进入覆盖有木屑的木制平台。在木屑区，它们可以进行探索和觅食行为（进食的食欲阶段），但从未获得饲料奖励。将60只禽鸟分为商业限制(R)、商业限制2倍（2R）和商业限制3倍（3R） 3组。总的来说，喂食R的鸟比喂食2R和3R的鸟更努力地到达木屑区域（在更多的测试中到达）
Broiler breeders (parents of meat chickens) are selected for fast growth and become obese if fed ad libitum. To avoid this and maintain good health and reproductive ability, they are feed restricted to about 1/3 of what they would eat ad libitum. As a result, they experience chronic hunger and exhibit abnormal behaviour patterns that may indicate stress and frustration. One approach to measuring hunger is to observe how much birds will work, such as pecking a key, for access to more or different types of food. However, the sight, smell, and feedback from consumption of the feed reward changes the context and may artificially raise feeding motivation. To avoid this, we tested broiler breeders in an apparatus in which they could work for access to a wooden platform covered in wood shavings by crossing a water runway which increased in length and depth in 8 successive tests. In the wood shavings area, they could perform exploratory and foraging behaviour (the appetitive phase of feeding) but were never rewarded with feed. Sixty birds were divided into three feed quantity treatments: commercial restriction (R), and twice (2R) or three times (3R) this amount. Overall, birds fed R worked harder to reach the wood shavings area (reached it in a larger number of tests) than 2R and 3R birds (P