The following notes have been largely collated from the publishers’ publicity materials. A Report or full Review may appear in a subsequent issue of Animal Welfare.

The following notes have been largely collated from the publishers’ publicity materials. A Report or full Review may appear in a subsequent issue of Animal Welfare.

The incentive value learning theory states that the value assigned to a resource depends on the motivational state of an animal when it first encounters that resource. The present experiment investigated whether domestic hens, Gallus domesticus, assign different incentive values to a novel food depending on their deprivation state when they encounter this novel food. Hens were first trained to find a novel food type hidden under wood shavings in a large food dish. Then, after half of the animals were food-deprived and half left not food-deprived, all hens were re-exposed to the novel food in a small food dish in a second test arena. Next, all hens were food-deprived and then given access to the original food dish with wood shavings but no food in the original test arena. Hens that had been food-deprived before re-exposure spent more time looking, pecking or scratching at the wood shavings in the dish and pecked more at the dish than did the hens that were re-exposed while sated. The sated hens also tended to sit down longer in the test arena than did deprived hens. Thus, hens that had been deprived before re-exposure to the novel food searched more actively for the food than hens that had been sated before re-exposure, indicating a higher motivation. These results prove for the first time that incentive value learning occurs in domestic hens.

Sir, Bradshaw and Bateson (2000a) wrote ‘overall we judge that the welfare costs associated with hunting red deer were higher than those associated with stalking and reducing the welfare costs associated with hunting was much less feasible than reducing those associated with stalking’. Others have reached the opposite conclusion (eg Harris et al [1999]; Wise [1999]; and submissions by Geist, Denny and Marriage to the Burns Inquiry and recorded in the CD published with Burns et al [2000]). Savage et al (1993) concluded that the communal hunting methods which regard the deer as a valued and respected quarry species, should lie at the heart of the management of the herds.

Early environmental experience can have significant effects on an animal's ability to adapt to challenges in later life. Prior experience of specific situations may facilitate the development of behavioural skills which can be applied in similar situations to later life. In addition, exposure to a more complex environment may enhance cognitive development (eg increased synaptic density), which can then speed the acquisition of new behavioural responses when faced with novel challenges (Grandin 1989).