Institute of Animal Welfare and Behaviour, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Germany.
Lab Anim. 2012 Jan;46(1):81-4. doi: 10.1258/la.2011.011072. Epub 2011 Dec 8.
Preference tests have often been performed for collecting information about animals' acceptance of environmental refinement objects. In numerous published studies animals were individually tested during preference experiments, as it is difficult to observe group-housed animals with an automatic system. Thus, videotaping is still the most favoured method for observing preferences of socially-housed animals. To reduce the observation workload and to be able to carry out preference testing of socially-housed animals, an automatic recording system (DoubleCage) was developed for determining the location of group-housed animals in a preference test set-up. This system is able to distinguish the transition of individual animals between two cages and to record up to 16 animals at the same time (four animals per cage). The present study evaluated the reliability of the DoubleCage system. The data recorded by the DoubleCage program and the data obtained by human observation were compared. The measurements of the DoubleCage system and manual observation of the videotapes are comparable and significantly correlated (P < 0.0001) with good agreement. Using the DoubleCage system enables precise and reliable recording of the preferences of group-housed animals and a considerable reduction of animal observation time.
偏好测试常用于收集有关动物对环境改良物品接受程度的信息。在许多已发表的研究中，动物在偏好实验中进行了个体测试，因为很难使用自动系统观察群体饲养的动物。因此，录像仍然是观察群居动物偏好的最受欢迎的方法。为了减少观察工作量并能够对群居动物进行偏好测试，开发了一种自动记录系统（DoubleCage），用于确定在偏好测试装置中群体饲养动物的位置。该系统能够区分个体动物在两个笼子之间的过渡，并同时记录多达 16 只动物（每笼 4 只）。本研究评估了 DoubleCage 系统的可靠性。比较了 DoubleCage 程序记录的数据和通过人工观察获得的数据。DoubleCage 系统的测量值和录像带的手动观察值具有可比性且显著相关（P<0.0001），一致性良好。使用 DoubleCage 系统可以精确可靠地记录群居动物的偏好，并大大减少动物观察时间。
