Abstract
AbstractTo assess the sex influence on sniffing behavior of rabbits, sets of three rabbits each were located for seven days in contiguous cages divided by a metal wall with holes that prevented the neighboring rabbits to see each other. A buck was located in the central cage, with a doe at each side. Rabbit behavior was video recorded to observe animals sniffing with the muzzle near the wall. The bucks displayed an olfactory preference towards one of the two does, which decreased in few days. The significance was p 0.05). The interest of bucks towards the does was also characterized by a frenetic scratching of the separation wall, contemporary with intense sniffing, displayed only for the first 35 min of the first day. The sniffing behavior of does at the central cage housing the male was not so marked as in bucks, and it progressively changed across the trial (p < 0.01). In co...
Highlights
The lack of social relationship is considered a welfare constraint in the industrial rabbit keeping system, in which each doe has its own cage, disposed as a part of a row along the building (Trocino & Xiccato, 2006; Verga, 2000)
The does’ sniffing interest for the conspecific located in the contiguous cage (Negretti et al, 2010) was more marked and intense when males were involved
As already shown, sniffing at the wall tended to diminish after the rabbits recognized each other, they need no longer any specific behavior to smell the conspecific in neighboring cages
Summary
The lack of social relationship is considered a welfare constraint in the industrial rabbit keeping system, in which each doe has its own cage, disposed as a part of a row along the building (Trocino & Xiccato, 2006; Verga, 2000). As the importance of olfactory stimuli to elicit specific behaviors, mainly in sexual relationships, is well known (Mainardi, 1992), this possibility has been investigated and it was possible to prove that does sniff at each other, though this behavior is observed only when the animals are recently located in contiguous cages and it tends to disappear in the lag of about a week (Negretti, Bianconi, & Finzi, 2010) Following this line of investigation, aimed at better understanding how rabbits can maintain a social relationship though located in single cages, a research was carried out to study what peculiar olfactory behavior can be observed when a buck is located in a cage between two does. This experiment is aimed only to ascertain if sniffing behavior is influenced by sex of the animals, since males are normally located together, rather than among does, in the industrial buildings
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