Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-c9gpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T07:28:44.302Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conditioned feeding responses of sheep towards flavoured foods associated with casein administration: the rôle of long delay learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

G. Arsenos ,
J. Hills  and
I. Kyriazakis
G. Arsenos
Affiliation:
Animal Biology Division, Scottish Agricultural College, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG
J. Hills
Affiliation:
School of Rural Science and Natural Resources, Division of Animal Science, University of New England, Armidale, 2351 NSW, Australia
I. Kyriazakis
Affiliation:
Animal Biology Division, Scottish Agricultural College, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG
Get access

Abstract

The objective of two experiments was to investigate whether a delayed type of learning could account for the conditioned feeding responses of sheep towards novel food flavours associated with post-ingestive consequences (PIC) created from the administration at different points in time of a nutritive stimulus (casein). The doses of casein were low (15 g) and high (75 g) for experiments 1 and 2, previously known to result in positive and negative PIC respectively. Each experiment consisted of three conditioning periods, during which sheep were trained to associate one of two novel flavours with either casein or water (placebo) administration. During each conditioning, a novel flavoured food low in protein and relatively high in energy, was offered for 3 h (08:00 to 11:00 h) and was followed by an unflavoured, nutritionally similar food for the rest of the feeding time (11:00 to 17:00 h). Sheep were randomly assigned to one of three treatments that were defined by the time when casein or water doses were administered, in relation to the presence of the flavoured food (A= 08:30 and 10:00, B= 11:30 and 13:00 and С = 14:30 and 16:00 h respectively). At the end of each conditioning period preference tests were performed, where sheep were offered a choice between the two flavoured foods. There was no effect of time of casein administration on the conditioned responses towards flavoured foods in either experiment. In both experiments, the proportion of the flavoured food selected was significantly affected by the interaction between preference tests and casein association. For experiment 1 this was due to an increasing preference for the casein associated food accompanied by a decreasing preference for the water associated flavoured food as a result of repeated conditioning. The degree of such preference was different between flavours used for association with casein or water. For experiment 2 avoidance of the casein and preference for the water associated food were established after the completion of the second and reinforced by the third conditioning period. Flavours used had a lesser effect on the conditioned responses of this experiment. The results support the view that sheep develop conditioned responses towards novel food flavours associated with the administration of a nutritive stimulus, even when the PIC resulting from its administration are significantly disassociated in time from the presence of the flavoured food.

Keywords

conditioningfeeding behaviourflavour compoundslearningsheep
Type
Ruminant nutrition, behaviour and production
Information
Animal Science , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , February 2000 , pp. 157 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © British Society of Animal Science 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agricultural and Food Research Council. 1993. Energy and protein requirements of ruminants. An advisory manual prepared by the AFRC Technical Committee on Responses to Nutrients. CAB International, Wallingford.Google Scholar
Arsenos, G. and Kyriazakis, I. 1999. The continuum between preferences and aversions for flavoured foods in sheep conditioned by administration of casein doses. Animal Science 68: 605–616.Google Scholar
Augner, M., Provenza, F. D. and Villalba, J. J. 1998. A rule of thumb in mammalian herbivores? Animal Behaviour 56: 337–345.Google Scholar
Baker, B. J. and Booth, D. A. 1989. Preference conditioning by concurrent diets with delayed proportional reinforcement. Physiology and Behavior 46: 585–590.Google Scholar
Burritt, E. A. and Provenza, F. D. 1991. Ability of lambs to learn with a delay between food ingestion and consequences given meals containing novel and familiar foods. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 32: 179–189.Google Scholar
Capaldi, E. 1992. Conditioned food preferences. Psychology of Learning and Motivation 28: 1–33.Google Scholar
Capaldi, E. D., Campbell, D. H., Sheffer, J. D. and Bradford, J. P. 1987. Conditioned flavor preferences based on delayed caloric consequences, journal of Experimental Psychology, Animal Behavior Process 13: 150–155.Google Scholar
Cooper, S. D.B., Kyriazakis, I. and Nolan, J. V. 1995. Diet selection in sheep: the role of the rumen environment on the selection of a diet from two foods that differ in their nutrient density. British Journal of Nutrition 74: 39–54.Google Scholar
Domjan, M. 1985. Cue-consequence specificity and long-delay learning revised. Annales of the New York Academy of Sciences 443: 54–66.Google Scholar
Early, D. M. and Provenza, F. D. 1998. Food flavor and nutritional characteristics alter dynamics of food preference in lambs, journal of Animal Science 76: 728–734.Google Scholar
Forbes, J. M. 1995. Voluntary food intake and diet selection in farm animals, pp. 247–303. CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon.Google Scholar
Forbes, J. M. and Kyriazakis, I. 1995. Food preferences in farm animals: why don’t they always choose wisely. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 54: 429–440.Google Scholar
Garcia, J., Ervin, F. R. and Koelling, R. A. 1966. Learning with prolonged delay of reinforcement. Psychonomie Science 5: 121–122.Google Scholar
Garcia, J. and Hankins, W. G. 1977. On the origin of food aversion paradigms. In Learning mechanism in food selection (ed. Barker, L. M. Best, M. R. and Domjan, M.), pp. 3–23. Baylor University Press Waco, Texas.Google Scholar
Garcia, J., Lasiter, P. A., Bermudez-Rattoni, F. and Deems, D. A. 1985. A general theory of aversion learning. In Experimental assessments and clinical applications of conditioned food aversion (ed. Braveman, N. S. and Bonstein, P.), pp. 8–21. New York Academy of Science, New York.Google Scholar
Hills, J., Kyriazakis, I., Nolan, J. V., Hinch, G. N. and Lynch, J. J. 1999. Conditioned feeding responses in sheep to flavoured feeds associated with sulphur doses. Animal Science 69: 313–325.Google Scholar
Horgan, G. W. and Sword, A. M. 1995. Statistical methods for repeated measures data. Edinburgh: Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Kalat, J. W. and Rozin, P. 1973. “Learned safety” as a mechanism in long-delay taste-aversion learning in rats. journal of Comparative Physiology and Psychology 83: 198–207.Google Scholar
Kronberg, S. L., Muntifering, R. B. and Ayers, E. L. 1993. Feed aversion learning in cattle with delayed negative consequences, journal of Animal Science 71: 1767–1770.Google Scholar
Kyriazakis, I. 1997. The nutritional choices of farm animals: to eat or what to eat? In Animal choices (ed. Forbes, J. M. Lawrence, T. L. J. Rodway, R. G. and Varley, M. A.), pp. 55–65. British Society of Animal Science, occasional publication no. 20 Google Scholar
Kyriazakis, I., Anderson, D. H. and Duncan, A. J. 1998. Conditioned flavour aversions in sheep: the relationship between the dose rate of a secondary plant compound and the acquisition and persistence of aversions. British Journal of Nutrition 79: 55–62.Google Scholar
Kyriazakis, I. and Day, J. E. L. 1998. Does the study of feeding behaviour benefit from a teleonomic framework? Nutrition Research Reviews 11: 223–229.Google Scholar
Kyriazakis, I. and Oldham, J. D. 1997. Food intake and diet selection in sheep-the effect of manipulating the rates of digestion of carbohydrates and protein of the foods offered as a choice. British Journal of Nutrition 77: 243–254.Google Scholar
Kyriazakis, I., Papachristou, T. G., Duncan, A. J. and Gordon, I. J. 1997. Mild conditioned food aversions developed by sheep towards flavours associated with plant secondary compounds. Journal of Chemical Ecology 23: 727–745.Google Scholar
Lawes Agricultural Trust. 1993. GEN STAT 5 release 3.2 reference manual, second edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Leng, R. A. and Nolan, J. V. 1984. Nitrogen metabolism in the rumen. Journal of Animal Science 67: 1072–1089.Google Scholar
Lindberg, M. A., Beggs, A. L., Chezik, D. D. and Ray, D. 1982. Flavor-toxicosis associations: tests of three hypotheses of long delay learning. Physiology and Behavior 29: 439–442.Google Scholar
Olsen, J. D., Ralphs, M. H. and Lane, M. A. 1989. Aversion to eating poisonous larkspur plants induced in cattle by intraruminal infusion with lithium chloride. Journal of Animal Science 67: 1980–1985.Google Scholar
Perez, C, Lucas, E and Sclafani, A. 1997. Carbohydrate, fat, and protein condition similar flavour preferences in rats using an oral-delay procedure Physiology and Behavior 57: 549–554.Google Scholar
Provenza, F. D. 1995. Postingestive feedback as an elementary determinant of food preference and intake in ruminants. Journal of Range Management 48: 2–17.Google Scholar
Provenza, F. D. 1996. Acquired aversions as the basis for varied diets of ruminants foraging on rangelands. Journal of Animal Science 74: 2010–2020.Google Scholar
Provenza, F. D., Lynch, J. J., Burritt, E. A. and Scott, C. D. 1994. How goats learn to distinguish between novel foods that differ in postingestive consequences. Journal of Chemical Ecology 20: 609–624.Google Scholar
Ramirez, I. 1996. Stimulus specificity in flavor acceptance learning. Physiology and Behavior 60: 595–610.Google Scholar
Rozin, P. 1977. The significance of learning mechanisms in food selection: some biology, psychology and sociology of science. In Learning mechanism in food selection (ed. Barker, L. M. Best, M. R. and Domjan, M.), pp. 557–581. Baylor University Press Waco, Texas.Google Scholar
Sclafani, A. 1994. How food preferences are learned: laboratory animal models. Symposium on ‘basic mechanisms of food preference and linking’ Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 54: 419–427.Google Scholar
Sclafani, A. 1997. Learned controls of ingestive behaviour. Appetite 29: 153–158.Google Scholar
Sinclair, L. A., Garnsworthy, P.C, Newbold, J. R. and Buttery, P. J. 1995. Effects of synchronising the rate of dietary energy and nitrogen release in diets with similar carbohydrate-composition on rumen fermentation and protein-microbial synthesis in sheep. Journal of Agricultural Science, Cambridge 124: 463–472.Google Scholar
Urbaniak, M. 1995. Effects of blood meal, fish meal, soybean meal or casein on rumen protein metabolism in lambs. Small Ruminant Research 18: 207–212.Google Scholar
Van Soest, P. J. 1994. Nutritional ecology of the ruminant, second edition, pp. 290–311. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Westoby, M. 1974. An analysis of diet selection by large generalist herbivores. American Naturalist 108: 290–304.Google Scholar
Weston, R. H. 1996. Some aspects of constraint to forage consumption by ruminants. Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 47: 175–197.Google Scholar
Zahorie, D. M., Houpt, K. A. and Swartzman-Ander, J. 1990. Taste-aversion learning in three species of ruminants. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 26: 27–39.Google Scholar