Animal Ethology: Behavior and Welfare

Animal Ethology and Welfare Course Overview

• This course aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of animal behavior
• It addresses the biological and environmental factors influencing animal behavior
• Principles of animal welfare will be covered to promote ethical treatment
• It will help improve the quality of life for animals in various settings

Aims of Ethology

• Find and establish the optimum environmental condition for animals
• Understand the animal mind and body language
• Diagnose diseases by differentiating between normal and abnormal behavior
• Examine and treat animals, including proper handling techniques
• Achieve successful animal reproduction and livestock raising
• Promote animal welfare for high performance and production
• Identify causes of behavioral disorders or vices

Module Components

• Focus is on animal behavior, animal welfare, and animal handling techniques

Concepts and Definitions

• Ethology is derived from the Greek words ethos (character) and -logia (the study of)
• Ethology studies animal behavior scientifically with a focus on natural conditions
• It views behavior as an evolutionarily adaptive trait
• Animal welfare means considering physical, psychological, social, and environmental well-being
• Animal welfare science studies the welfare of animals as pets, in zoos, labs, farms and in the wild
• Animal welfare means how an animal is coping with its surroundings and environment
• An animal is in a good state of welfare if it is healthy, comfortable, well-nourished and safe

Animal Handling

• Animal handling and restraint provides students knowledge, skills and techniques for safely handling animals
• It ensures the welfare and safety of animals and handlers
• Understanding animal behavior allows students to approach, handle and restrain animals while reducing stress

Course Goals for Animal behavior

• Students develop understanding of normal and abnormal animal behaviors
• Students assess behavior in clinical and practical contexts
• Behavioral principles apply to develop strategies for modifications/training/management
• Promote animal welfare by understanding its link to behavior
• Advocate practices that enhance animal well-being
• Students are able to effectively communicate behavior management and welfare practices

Topic - Indicative Content

• Definitions and concepts
• Types of behaviors
• Learning in animals
• Biological rhythms
• Sleep in animals
• Stereotypic behaviors
• Animal signals and communications

Defining Animal Behavior

• Behavior describes how an animal interacts with its environment
• A key consideration is both the animate and inanimate aspects
• Its all acts performed by animals, including feeding, drinking, and fighting
• It is an action that muscles carry out via the nervous system in response to a stimulus

Behavioral Ecology

• Behavioral ecology focuses on ecological and evolutionary bases for animal behavior

Migration

• Migration indicates regular, long-distance changes in location
• Animals use environmental and sun stimuli to track their position
• Circadian rhythms help track positional changes based on the sun and stars
• Magnetic fields are used by some animals like pigeons and fishes

Behavior and Animal Production

• Understanding animal behavior improves handling and reduces stress in livestock
• It improves both handler safety and animal welfare
• Farm managers, animal transporters, and designers of animal housing should know about animal behavior
• Feeding-related concerns are needed for type and amount of food, feed conversion and feeding control
• Successful mating and young animal survival are key considerations for reproductive behaviors
• Knowledge of floor space and stocking density is important for animal production in response to social behavior

Behavior in Veterinary Medicine

• Knowledge of behavior is crucial for handling and restraint
• Changes in behavior are the first sign of disease
• Diagnosis covers appetite, activity level and grooming
• Behavioral therapy addresses different behavioral problems in pets
• Issues in behavioral therapy include unacceptable elimination behaviors or aggression

Nature vs. Nurture

• Behavior is a blend of innate (inherited) tendencies and acquired (learned) aspects

Motivation of Behavior

• Behavior maintenance and reproductive actions are related to motivation
• Motivation is the internal state triggering an immediate behavioral response
• Organisms share biological needs
• Satisfying physiological requires like food and water are included
• Unsatisfied drives occur if needs are not met

The Drive

• Psychological consequence of unmet need to create the drive
• Being in a high drive state causes movement
• 3 stages of animal behavior exist
• The searching phase known also as appetitive behavior
• Consummatory behavior satisfies the goal
• Satisfaction and sleep after the goal is complete in the phase of quiescence

Satisfaction of Needs

• Needs indicate hungar, thirst, and sexual drive
• Specific goals mean food, water, and sex

Classifying Animal Behavior

• Inherited behavior means innate, unlearned, instinctive, and native behaviors
• These are important for species survival and conservation
• Acquired behavior means learned behavior
• Adopt a usefel means of survival within their environment

Innate Behavior

• This kind of animal behavior is developmentally fixed under strong genetic control
• This occurs despite internal/external environmental differences

Experience Influence

• Important in animal growth and development
• Need to test how experience influence response to growth
• A cross fostering study includes measuring influence of social environment of species on behavior
• This compares identical twins raised differently to reveal influences of nature and nurture

Inherited Behavior

• This includes types of behavior
• Behavior of maintenance includes self-maintenance
• Constant needs indicate ingestion, elimination, and sleep
• Agonistic behavior is necessary for animal reproduction and species maintenance
• This includes sexual and parenting actions
• The action needs to occur in a certain way

Maintenance Behaviors

• Ingestive behaviors are related to anatomy and physiology regarding food ingestion
• Concerns include herbivorous, omnivorous and carnivorous actions
• This also includes drinking fluids and milk intake
• To look and locate animal food is critical for survival

Eliminative Behaviors

• Actions like feces and urination occur in these behaviors
• Posture of elimination shifts between species
• Sex dictates differing eliminative behaviors
• Social status indicates a connection to fear

Grooming Behaviors

• Grooming behaviors involves body care
• Includes natural grooming, regulating temp
• An animal's care for through rubbing and biting areas of the body counts as an animal

Self-Grooming

• Animals performs a number of licking that help take care of the body
• Cleaning the body is a good indicator of general health
• Its free from parasites and other objects
• Grooming reduces disease and alleviates muscle pain

Mutual Grooming

• Allogrooming and social actions include others helping take care of the animal
• These are herdmates generally
• Removing parasites from hard to reach limbs
• Can involve taking care of wounds and other animals
• Grooming is a response to reward others
• Cementing between animals by cementing and aggression reduction occurs

Reproductive Behaviors

• The activities or actions during reproduction include
• Male and female sex responses occur at the same time
• Behaviors includes courtships
• Post-copulatory (quiet period and flehmen response)

Female Sexual Behavior

• Involves estrous cycles and best mating times
• Includes mating tails and lordosis actions
• Specific behaviors include immobilization

Maternal Behaviors

• Care-giving behavior is a maternal sign that can involve attention and other actions
• Feeding the young is crucial for maternal survival
• The animal approach can cause parturition issues to arise to signs
• Motherly behavior (licking/imprinting), sucking and brooding is important

Maternal Factors

• Maternal behavior is innate but experience has a role
• Heredity and mothering behavior has many hormones and stimuli
• Sound and sight appearance are important

Types of Maternal Behaviors During Birth

• Polytocous: when animals are dependent on their mothers
• Includes rats, rabbits and cats
• Monotocous actions (horse, sheep, camels,etc) are precocious

Precocial Versus Altricial

• Precocial species resemble Lambs
• Altricial species have helpless features
• These include mice and dogs

Paternality

• Paternal behavior: involves one or both parents equally
• This can occur in birds and some other animal species and offspring egg and fry.
• Male parental behavior includes species like apes
• Certain eye dark jungle is include that can be aggressive

Soliciting Behavior

• When animals are stress they display Epimeletic signals
• To get caretaker care is important
• distress sounds are made when young chicks/dogs are stressed

Agonistic Behavior

• Includes physical actions that reduces another individual actions
• Passivity can have defense (fight) to keep from being injured within animal life
• Obtaining food and protecting young are basic

Types of Aggression

• Social aggression: is dominant over the other
• Territorial agression: Animals are kept out of home
• Pain triggers agression with previous bad experiences
• Animals are aggressive when injured, or fatigued
• Protecting young means the female has the same strength
• Infanticide includes killing young
• When eating the young means survival it is likely

Aggression Categories

• When building a submissive state to another
• During terriority limitation as a method to survive the animals.
• Can involve fear and induced or even maternal actions

Dominance

• Social aggression
• Establish dominant structures with what can be limited
• Horses displace between their
• Two dogs at times cohabit but the owner throws the ball

Territory Aggression

• The defense of animals towards humans
• Welcoming other means getting the animals away from humans

Pain

• Reduces the pain of any type of animal

Feared Aggression

• Fear will become motivation for their own cause

Maternal Behavior

• Aggressions can have an impact on the young

Biology

• Three components indicate that the is a Biological reaction to their causes
• Being a Enviroment that affects
• Breed is important in which animals or what species they are
• Hormoral factors (breeding) indicate this

Aggressions

• When animals are Aggressive they have certain controlls
• Hormonal and Enviromental
• The limited studies that have showed size plays a role
• Unpredictablity will trigger at a higher
• Most breed can get out og controll

Genetic

• The environmnet that the the animal gows will have high contact with their agresstion.
• Their early life plays a role will the the beastial behavior

Genetic & Harmoral

• They could be other indicators that can affect
• Impulsive with serotonin.
• The brain gets serotonin and dopamine when they lack a brain

Acquired Characteristics

• This behavior can show when domsetic animals can learn at a higer rate
• Surival is at a higher rate.

Allelomimetic Behavior

• When animals do mutual actions that stimated and coordination

All the Good Behavior

• Helping keep the animals safe

Behavior that Harmful

• Harmful actions between each group

Shelter

• The are many reasons when animals see for shelter
• Try to avoid when they are more sucpectable to predators
• Seeking shelter helps with thremo rgualtion

Exploratory Behavior

• When an aimsl has the habilty to explore