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Acquisition of flavour preferences in pigs through interactions with conspecifics that had previously consumed flavoured protein solutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2020

J. Figueroa Open the ORCID record for J. Figueroa [Opens in a new window] ,
M. Müller ,
S. A. Guzmán-Pino ,
R. Franco-Rosselló ,
D. Solà-Oriol ,
E. Borda ,
D. M. Dwyer  and
J. F. Pérez
J. Figueroa*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ciencias Animales, Facultad de Agronomía e Ingeniería Forestal, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Macul7 820 436, Santiago, Chile
M. Müller
Affiliation:
Departamento de Fomento de la Producción Animal, Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias y Pecuarias, Universidad de Chile, La Pintana8 820 000, Santiago, Chile
S. A. Guzmán-Pino
Affiliation:
Departamento de Fomento de la Producción Animal, Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias y Pecuarias, Universidad de Chile, La Pintana8 820 000, Santiago, Chile
R. Franco-Rosselló
Affiliation:
Servei de Nutrició i Benestar Animal (SNiBA), Departament de Ciència Animal i dels Aliments, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08 193Bellaterra, Spain
D. Solà-Oriol
Affiliation:
Servei de Nutrició i Benestar Animal (SNiBA), Departament de Ciència Animal i dels Aliments, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08 193Bellaterra, Spain
E. Borda
Affiliation:
Bioibérica S.A.U., Palafolls08 389, Spain
D. M. Dwyer
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, CardiffCF10 3AT, UK
J. F. Pérez
Affiliation:
Servei de Nutrició i Benestar Animal (SNiBA), Departament de Ciència Animal i dels Aliments, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08 193Bellaterra, Spain
*
†E-mail: Figueroa.jaime@uc.cl
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Abstract

It is known that pigs can acquire flavour preferences by brief social interactions with conspecifics that previously consumed a flavoured solid feed. However, there is no information about whether a flavoured solution could support flavour preferences through social transmission. Ninety-six pigs (49 days old) were housed in 12 pens (8 pigs/pen). Four animals per pen were randomly selected to act as observers and four as demonstrators. Demonstrator animals were temporarily moved to an empty pen where a protein solution was offered (porcine digestive peptides (PDPs), 4% weight/volume) with the addition of 0.075% aniseed (six pens) or garlic (six pens) powdered artificial flavours for 30 min. Afterwards, demonstrators were returned to interact with observer animals for 30 min. A choice test (30 min) between aniseed and garlic PDP was performed for each observer group after the interaction. Observers showed a higher intake of solutions previously consumed by their demonstrator conspecifics (648 v. 468 ml; SEM 61.36, P < 0.05). As with flavoured solid feeds, protein solutions containing artificial flavours can create preferences in pigs for those flavours through social transmission from conspecifics.

Keywords

demonstratorflavour transmissionnursery pigsobserversocial learning
Type
Short Communication
Information
animal , Volume 14 , Issue 8 , August 2020 , pp. 1740 - 1744
Copyright
© The Animal Consortium 2020

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