An Introduction to Animal Behavior

1. An Introduction to Animal Behavior By Essam M. Abdelfattah BSc., MSc., PhD

2. EthologyAnimal Behavior • Scientific study of animal behavior in their natural or usual environment • Study of habits and customs of animals • Founders of this study = famous behaviorists Lorenz and Tinbergen • Earned Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for their work • Big Theory = Animal’s behavior evolved through the animal’s interaction with its environment

3. What is animal behavior? • Behavior: is the way in which animal interact with its surrounding environment, both • Animate Environment= (humans, other animals, plants) • Inanimate Environment= (objects, places, sun, air) • All acts performed by animals (feeding, drinking, fighting, etc.. • Response of animal to a certain stimulus

4. Aim of ethology (7 T) • To find and establish the optimum environmental condition • To know what is going within the animal mind and understand the body language • To diagnose disease (normal Vs. abnormal) • To examine and treat animals (how to handle animals) • Select method of restraint acc. To behavior of animal • To achieve animal reproduction and raise livestock (sexual and maternal behavior) • To achieve animal welfare which will lead to high performance and production • To know the actual causes which induce the behavioral disorders or vices

5. Behavior and animal production • An understanding of the behavior of livestock will facilitate handling, reduce stress, and improve both handler safety and animal welfare. Large animals can seriously injure handlers and/or themselves if they become excited or agitated. • Stockman, farm manager, animal transporter, and designer of animal houses have to be aware of farm animal behavioral informations

6. Feeding behavior: • what is the type and amount of food that animal need, feed conversion efficiency, control of feeding • Reproductive behavior: • Successful mating • Survival of young animals • Social behavior • Knowledge of floor space and stocking density are important for animal production

7. Behavior and veterinary medicine • Knowledge of behavior is important for handling and restraint of animals for surgeon • Diagnosis of diseases: change in behavior is first signs of disease (loss of appetite, altered activity, loss of grooming) • E.g. horse suffering from colic • Diagnosis and treatment of different behavioral problems in pets (behavioral therapy) •  Examples include pets with unacceptable elimination behaviors or are aggressive to people or other animals.

9. How is behavior determined? Nature (biology) vs. Nurture (environment)? • Is behavior inborn (instinctive) and predetermined? • Or is it a function of learning and the environment?

10. How is behavior determined? Both! Behavior is a blend of innate behavior (inherited) and acquired (learned) behavior`

11. Classification of animal behavior • Inherited behavior (innate, unlearned, instinctive, native) • Important for survival and conservation of species • Acquired behavior (learned) • Adopt useful method for survival within their environment

12. Inherited behavior • Includes two types: • Behavior of maintenance • Constant behavioral patterns needed to maintain animal life (self-maintenance) such as ingestion, elimination, rest and sleep • Reproductive behavior • Behavioral patterns occurring during reproduction needed to maintain animal species • Sexual behavior • Maternal behavior

13. Maintenance behaviors • Ingestive behavior: • Related to anatomy and physiology of each species (prehension) • Related to nature of food (herbivorous, carnivores, omnivorous) • Including feeding (ingestion of solid feed), drinking (ingestion of water and milk) • Understanding of ingestive behavior (how tosearch for, to locate and to ingest food) is critical to animal production. • Horse = cropping by incisors • Cattle = eating by tongue • Sheep and goat = incisors and lips • Dog = gulping the food

14. Eliminative behavior • Evacuation of faces (defecation) and urine (urination) • Posture or stance of elimination differ between species, • Horse: following defecation turn and smell the spot • Cattle: raising of tail and arching of back • Dog: raising one leg and urinate to substrate • Cats: toilet behavior • Birds: defecate by leaning forward, raising the tail and spreading the feather • differ between sexes, • Male dog cock one leg and urinate while females usually squat • Differ with social status: increase with fear

16. Grooming behavior (body care) • Including: • Care of the body (natural grooming) • Thermoregulation (regulate body temperature) • Self-Grooming (Auto-grooming)= animal take care of its own body through licking and rubbing (parts that can reach) • Body licking, nose licking, rolling, scratching • Function • Keep body clean (One good indicator of general health) • Free from ecto-parasites • Free from foreign objects (faces, urine, mud) • Reduce risk of diseases

18. Mutual grooming (social or allo-grooming) • One animal take care of another animal (herdmates) • Function (biological and social): • Remove ecto-parasites from parts that animal can not reach • Take care of wounds • Reward for the groomer (obtain salt and vitamin D) • Promote and cement relationship between individuals • Reduce aggression and tension • Maintain social structure

20. Reproductive behaviors • The activities or actions during reproduction includes: • Sexual behavior: • Male sexual behavior • Pre-copulatory (courtship/libido) • Copulatory (erection, mounting, ejaculation, dismounting) • Post-copulatory (quiet period, flehmen response) • Female sexual behavior • Estrous cycle (length, type, signs) • Ovulation (type, time) • Best time of mating • Maternal behavior (care-giving behavior, Epimeletic, attentive)

21. Maternal behavior (Epimeletic) • Feeding and keeping of the offspring from danger by dam (female) which is important for survival of animal • Pre-parturient • signs approaching parturition • Nest-building (rabbits) • Isolation and shelter-seeking (sheep) • Parturient (stages of birth) • Post parturient • Licking behavior (maternal licking and imprinting) • Sucking behavior • Brooding in chickens

22. Low maternal behavior (rabbit) • High maternal behavior (dog) • Maternal behavior is innate behavior however experience play a role • Factors influence the expression of maternal behavior: • Internal factors • Hereditary (gene expression) • Hormones (Prolactine) • Experience • External factors • Smell, sound, and appearance of newborn

23. Two classes of maternal behavior • Polytocous species (dog, cat, rabbits, mice, rat) • Altracious young • Young entirely depend on mother • Monotocus species (horse, cattle, camel, sheep) • Precocious young • Low maternal behavior

24. Types of embryos • Precocial: when newly born resemble adult and can feed, move and defend themselves e.g. Lamb of sheep. • Altricial: when are helpless without parent can’t survive e.g. mice, rats, dogs. • PrecocialAltricial

25. Paternal behavior: in which both parents (male and female) take care offspring equally • E.g. many species of birds (pigeon) and fish (take care of egg and fries) • Male parental behavior: in which male take care offspring • Not common in animals (primates) • Common in birds (dark eye junco)

26. Care soliciting behavior (Et-epimeletic) • Care-soliciting behavior is a variety of behavioral activities manifested to solicit attention, care, or help from other individuals. For example, some dogs exhibit this behavior during thunderstorms unnecessarily to get 'love' from owners. • Usually manifested by young animals so called ‘’ infantile behavior’’ when was under stress or danger (distress call) • Chicks……….. Chirp • Calves…………bawl • Lambs………..bleat • Puppies………whine or yelp

27. Agonistic behavior • Aggression: a physical act or threat of action by an individual which cause pain or injury or reduce freedom of another individual • Agonistic behavior: any behavior associated with threat, attack or defense (escape, passivity, aggression) • Function of aggression in animal life: • To obtain food • To facilitate access to another sex • To establish social dominance • To win territory • To protect their young

28. Types of aggression • Social aggression • who will be dominant over whom • To form peck order (social hierarchy) • Type of social grouping • Territorial aggression • Keep animals out of home area • Pain or fear- induced aggression • Treatment of abscess • Irritable aggression • Hungary, fatigued, sick, old animals • Maternal aggression • To protect young and equal to male attack

29. Sexual aggression • Competition between animals of same species to obtain a sexual partner • In some species such as the cat, mating accompanied with aggression • Predatory aggression • Food-getting behavior • Some animals attack to obtain food • Infanticide • Killing of very young animals by adult • Female rodents kill pups • Rabbits eating their young

30. Allelomimetic behavior (mimesis, contagious, gregarious or mimetic) • In which two or more animals do the same thing at the same with some degree of mutual stimulation and coordination. • Beneficial: • maintain social group and provide safety • Encourage feeding behavior • Harmful: • Spread of vices between members of group

31. Shelter-seeking behavior • Looking for optimum environmental condition to avoid predators • Some animals find shelter from bodies of other animals • Other animals find shelter within farm, barn or from objects like trees • Thermoregulation

32. Exploratory behavior (investigatory behavior) • Explore their environment to obtain information for survival by using sense organs • Differ between species and individuals • Allow time for investigation in new area

33. Signaling between one animal & another • Greeting e.g. sniff, hug, kiss • Aggression e.g. charge, bite, hit, fight • Non-aggression e.g. patting, head butting, stroking • Verbal signaling (vocalization) • E.g. bark, howl, hoot, chirp • Non-verbal signaling • E.g. body, head, ear, & / or tail position • Showing teeth, smiling, sign language

35. Motivation (motivated behaviors) • Behavior of maintenance and reproductive behavior related to what is called motivation • Motivation: the internal state of animal that causes the immediate behavioral response • Each organism born have a variety of biological needs • Need: something that is required physiologically e. g. need for food, water, sex • When the need is not satisfied, the drive is aroused

36. The drive: is psychological consequence of need • Once the animal in high drive state (motivated), the animal start to move • So we can observe 3 stages in animal’s behavior: • The searching phase (Appetitive behavior) • Consumatory behavior (achievement of the goal) • Phase of quiescence (satiation)

37. Need • Hunger • Thirst • Sexual drive • Goal • Food • Water • Other sex

38. Acquired behaviors • Domestic animals have ability to learn • They adopt new useful methods for survival within their environment • Animals acquire many behavioral patterns through learning • Learning • Development of behavior through experience • Determine final shape of innate behaviors • 7 types of learning

39. Types of learning • Habituation • Is waning of a new response to a repeated stimulus • Simplest form of learning • Occur rapidly if stimuli are given close together • Importance of habituation • Filtering large amounts of information received from surrounding environment • Waning of the responses of farm animals to handling procedures and housing conditions • Animal learns to ignore frequent, harmless stimulus • E.g scarecrow, habituation to observer

40. Associative learning • Animal learns to associate unrelated response with a stimulus • Two types of associative learning: • Classical conditioning (CR type I, Pavlovian conditioning) • In which animal associate a response with a certain stimulus as a result of reinforcement • E.g. Pavlov’s experiments • Bell ringing, food, salivation • Bell ringing salivation (even if no food is given)

41. Pavlov’s experiment

42. How dog training works

43. Reinforcement • In conditioning animals modify their behavior in such way to obtain maximum reward and avoid punishment • Positive reinforcement…. Giving animal favorite food • Negative reinforcement…. Punishment

44. Classical conditioning • E.g. 1. suckling by calf, squeezing of teat release of oxytocine • 2. Jangling of milking equipments, sight of calf release of oxytocine

45. Operant conditioning (CR type II, trail and error) • In which animal learn to behave in a certain way through repeated practice • Trail & error learning- animal tests conditions for desired response • In which animal is motivated by thirst, hunger, fear but no UCS • E.g. Skinner box (B.F. Skinner) • Animal learns that a behavior gets a certain response • E.g. rat presses lever to get food

47. Operant conditioning • Because the animal uses behavior as instrument in getting a reward, it is usually called instrumental conditioning • Operant used because the animal response in some way operates on the environment

48. Reinforcement • Positive reinforcement • Used for strengthens a response • Giving animals favored food e.g. grains • Negative reinforcement • Used for removing unwanted response • Punishment such as hitting

49. Imprinting • Definition: • A process that occurs when an animal learns to make a particular response to only type of animal or object • Both innate and learned • Occurs during a definite critical time period (within first 36 hr) • Irreversible (once learned, can’t be changed) • Conard Lorenz with duckling

50. Imprinting • Animals learn to follow their mothers just after parturition or hatching (attachment behavior) • Lambs and colts are most ones can be imprinted to other animal, human, objects