ORCID Profile
0000-0001-6229-4700
Current Organisations
The University of Edinburgh
,
International Livestock Research Institute Ethiopia
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2014
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2010
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2011
DOI: 10.1016/J.PSYNEUEN.2010.07.018
Abstract: Judgement bias has potential as a measure of affective state in animals. The serotonergic system may be one mechanism involved with the formation of negative judgement biases. It was hypothesised that depletion of brain serotonin would induce negative judgement biases in sheep. A dose response trial established that 40 mg/kg of p-Chlorophenylalanine (pCPA) administered to sheep for 3 days did not affect feeding motivation or locomotion required for testing judgement biases. Thirty Merino ewes (10 months old) were trained to an operant task for 3 weeks. Sheep learnt to approach a bucket when it was placed in one corner of the testing facility to receive a feed reward (go response), and not approach it when in the alternate corner (no-go response) to avoid a negative reinforcer (exposure to a dog). Following training, 15 sheep were treated with pCPA (40 mg/kg daily) for an extended duration (5 days). Treated and control sheep were tested for judgement bias following 3 and 5 days of treatment, and again 5 days after cessation of treatment. Testing involved the bucket being presented in ambiguous locations between the two learnt locations, and the response of the sheep (go/no-go) measured their judgement of the bucket locations. Following 5 days of treatment, pCPA-treated sheep approached the most positive ambiguous location significantly less than control sheep, suggesting a pessimistic-like bias (treatment × bucket location interaction F(1,124.6)=49.97, p=0.011). A trend towards a significant interaction was still evident 5 days after the cessation of pCPA treatment (p=0.068), however no significant interaction was seen on day 3 of testing (p=0.867). These results support the suggestion that judgement bias is a cognitive measure of affective state, and that the serotonergic pathway may be involved.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2010
DOI: 10.1016/J.BEPROC.2010.01.019
Abstract: Testing judgement biases of animals may provide insight into their affective states however important questions about methodologies need to be answered. This experiment investigated the effect of repeated testing using unreinforced, ambiguous cues on the response of sheep to a go/no-go judgement bias test. Fifteen sheep were trained to differentiate between two locations, reinforced respectively with feed (positive) or with the presentation of a dog (negative). The responses to nine ambiguous locations, positioned between the positively and negatively reinforced locations, were tested repeatedly over 3 weeks. Sheep exhibited a symmetrical gradation in response to ambiguous locations between the positive and negative reinforcers. There was a significant decline (P=0.001) in the total number of approaches to the ambiguous positions over time (weeks). This effect of time suggests that sheep learnt that the ambiguous locations were unrewarded. This result supplies evidence of a limitation identified in current judgement bias methodology, due to repeated testing, which has the potential to provide misleading results.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
Date: 09-2014
Abstract: Several studies suggest that veterinary students' empathy for animals declines during the years spent at university, yet the factors responsible for this change are not well understood. This study focused on the influence of workplace learning (WPL) on veterinary students' empathy for animals. WPL comprises off-c us placements and is common to all veterinary degree programs. A survey of 150 veterinary students at Charles Sturt University was conducted using an established animal-empathy scale. In general, our findings supported previous studies that empathy for animals declines between the first and fifth year and is lower in male students than in female students. Our findings indicated that specific factors relating to WPL such as pre-clinical extramural studies and clinical placements significantly influenced the students' beliefs on animal welfare. The findings presented here suggest that closer examination of the impact of WPL within the veterinary curricula is important to understanding students' changes in empathy for animals and the development of ethical principles in veterinary education.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2011
DOI: 10.1016/J.PHYSBEH.2011.01.001
Abstract: Animal welfare research is now starting to measure the cognitive component of affective states in an effort to improve welfare assessments of animals. Twenty-six Romane ewe lambs were trained to a spatial location task previously demonstrated to test for judgement bias in sheep. This required a go/no-go response according to the location of a bucket in a pen, with one location being positively reinforced (with a feed reward) and the other negatively reinforced (with a fan-forced blower). While training in the judgement bias arena continued, half of the sheep (n=13) were subjected to a chronic, intermittent treatment that consisted of stressful events common to production systems. After 3 weeks of treatment, all sheep were tested for biases in judgement by placing the bucket in ambiguous locations between the two learnt reference locations. The emotional reactivity, as characterised by behavioural and physiological responses, of all sheep to events that were unexpected, novel or sudden was then tested. A significant treatment × bucket location interaction was seen on day 3 with Stressed sheep approaching the bucket locations less than Control sheep (p=0.007). This may reflect a bias in judgement, however it is also possibly a treatment-induced difference in learning. Cardiac data did not indicate treatment differences, however the RMSSD of Control sheep in novel and unfamiliar situations was always higher than the Stressed animals. No meaningful treatment differences in emotional reactivity behaviours were evident. This paper provides further evidence that affective states exist and can be measured in animals.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2016
DOI: 10.1016/J.BEPROC.2016.08.004
Abstract: The aim of the current study was to investigate the social relationships between in idual sheep, and factors that influence this, through the novel application of the statistical multiple membership multiple classification (MMMC) model. In study one 49 ewes (ranging between 1 and 8 years old) were fitted with data loggers, which recorded when pairs of sheep were within 4m or less of each other, within a social group, for a total of 6days. In study two proximity data were collected from 45 ewes over 17days, as were measures of ewe temperament, weight and weather. In study 1 age difference significantly influenced daily contact time, with sheep of the same age spending an average of 20min 43s together per day, whereas pairs with the greatest difference in age spent 16min 33s together. Maximum daily temperature also significantly affected contact time, being longer on hotter days (34min 40s hottest day vs. 18min 17s coolest day), as did precipitation (29min 33s wettest day vs. 10min 32s no rain). Vocalisation in isolation, as a measure of temperament, also affected contacts, with sheep with the same frequency of vocalisations spending more time together (27min 16s) than those with the greatest difference in vocalisations (19min 36s). Sheep behaviour in the isolation box test (IBT) was also correlated over time, but vocalisations and movement were not correlated. Influences of age, temperature and rain on social contact are all well-established and so indicate that MMMC modelling is a useful way to analyse social structures of the flock. While it has been demonstrated that personality factors affect social relationships in non-human animals, the finding that vocalisation in isolation influences pair social contact in sheep is a novel one.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2011
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 26-05-2022
DOI: 10.1071/AN21562
Abstract: Context Animal production plays a critical role in many global challenges around sustainability, including climate change and resilience, One Health and food security. With this role comes pressures on livestock welfare. Aims This paper demonstrates key contributions animal welfare makes to global sustainability challenges. Methods This paper highlights ‘win–win’ improvements for both animal welfare and other aspects of sustainability by using the following four case studies: tail docking Australian sheep, agroforestry systems in Ethiopia, the Australian dairy-beef industry, and strategic feeding of goats in Pakistan. Key results These case studies show how animal welfare can be improved alongside livelihoods. However, even in these win–win situations, the adoption of improved practices is not guaranteed. Conclusions Long-term, sustained change in animal welfare can simultaneously make in roads to other challenges around sustainability. To do this, we must have a broader understanding of the system in which the animals are raised, so that barriers to change can be identified. Implications Lessons from these case studies can be applied to other production contexts and challenges, highlighting the universal value of understanding and addressing animal welfare.
Publisher: PeerJ
Date: 14-12-2015
DOI: 10.7717/PEERJ.1510
Abstract: New tests of animal affect and welfare require validation in subjects experiencing putatively different states. Pharmacological manipulations of affective state are advantageous because they can be administered in a standardised fashion, and the duration of their action can be established and tailored to suit the length of a particular test. To this end, the current study aimed to evaluate a pharmacological model of high and low anxiety in an important agricultural and laboratory species, the sheep. Thirty-five 8-month-old female sheep received either an intramuscular injection of the putatively anxiogenic drug 1-(m-chlorophenyl)piperazine (mCPP 1 mg/kg n = 12), an intravenous injection of the putatively anxiolytic drug diazepam (0.1 mg/kg n = 12), or acted as a control (saline intramuscular injection n = 11). Thirty minutes after the treatments, sheep were in idually exposed to a variety of tests assessing their general movement, performance in a ‘runway task’ (moving down a raceway for a food reward), response to startle, and behaviour in isolation. A test to assess feeding motivation was performed 2 days later following administration of the drugs to the same animals in the same manner. The mCPP sheep had poorer performance in the two runway tasks (6.8 and 7.7 × slower respectively than control group p 0.001), a greater startle response (1.4 vs. 0.6 p = 0.02), a higher level of movement during isolation (9.1 steps vs. 5.4 p 0.001), and a lower feeding motivation (1.8 × slower p 0.001) than the control group, all of which act as indicators of anxiety. These results show that mCPP is an effective pharmacological model of high anxiety in sheep. Comparatively, the sheep treated with diazepam did not display any differences compared to the control sheep. Thus we suggest that mCPP is an effective treatment to validate future tests aimed at assessing anxiety in sheep, and that future studies should include other subtle indicators of positive affective states, as well as dosage studies, so conclusions on the efficacy of diazepam as a model of low anxiety can be drawn.
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 2015
DOI: 10.1071/AN14288
Abstract: Magnesium (Mg) supplementation has shown to modulate the stress responses to transport in other species. An experiment was designed to evaluate the effect of Mg for alleviating stress associated with road transportation in lambs. Two groups (n = 18 each) of 4-month old male crossbred lambs (24 ± 4.5 kg) were fed a basal diet comprising oaten hay, pellets and barley, that contained 0.17% Mg. One group was supplemented with magnesium oxide, such that dietary Mg was 0.41%. At the end of the 2-week supplementation period, the lambs were transported by road for 8 h. Blood s les were collected before supplementation, 1 h before transport, within 0.5 h post-transport, at 2 h post-transport and 5 days post-transport. Data were analysed using a repeated-measure analysis of variance and linear mixed model with treatment within time interaction. Supplementation with dietary Mg in the form of MgO increased serum Mg concentrations (1.16 mmol/L ± 0.012, compared with 1.09 mmol/L ± 0.013 in the control group P 0.05), but had no effect on alleviating stress during transportation. Transport resulted in a significant increase in serum cortisol, which returned to pre-transport levels 2 h after transport. The serum β-hydroxybutyrate was significantly higher 5 days after transport. The post-transport average feed intake and the average daily gain were significantly lower than pre-transport values, suggesting that the stress of transportation resulted in a decrease in feed intake post-transport, which could have implications on liveweight gain of animals after transportation.
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: Ethiopia
No related grants have been discovered for Rebecca Doyle.