Ability of goats and calves to distinguish between conspecific urine samples using olfaction

Abstract

Goats and calves were trained, using an operant conditioning method, to discriminate between odours from pairs of urine samples collected from two different individuals of their own species. In the discrimination task the animals faced two response panels, and a tube adjacent to one panel emitted an odour used as the positive discriminative stimulus and another tube near the other panel emitted the odour used as the negative discriminative stimulus. Only presses on the panel associated with the positive stimulus were reinforced and both odours were presented simultaneously. After each reinforcement the position of the positive odour was randomly varied. In control tests, in which the same odour was emitted over both panels, the animals were unable to score below chance levels.