Animal Welfare Program, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia, 2357 Main Mall, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1Z4, Canada.
Dairy Science Program, Department of Animal and Food Sciences, University of Kentucky, 325 Cooper Dr., Lexington, 40546, USA.
Sci Rep. 2020 Apr 28;10(1):7111. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-63930-8.
Food neophobia, i.e. the avoidance of novel foods, is common in ruminants and may provide a biologically relevant and practical way to test individual responses to novelty or challenge. We aimed to determine if behavioural responses in a food neophobia test (exposure to a novel total mixed ration) reflected boldness and exploratory personality traits derived from 3 traditional tests (open field, novel human and novel object) in dairy calves. We performed two Principal Component Analyses, one using behaviours from 3 traditional tests (3 factors: 'Bold', 'Exploratory' and 'Active'), and one using behaviours from the food neophobia test (3 factors: 'Eating', 'Inspecting', and 'Avoidance'). A regression analysis determined if individual factor scores from the food neophobia test predicted factor scores from the traditional tests. Contrary to our expectations, 'Avoidance' (latencies to approach and eat the novel food) did not predict boldness trait, and the factors 'Inspecting' (time spent inspecting food and empty buckets) and 'Eating' (time spent eating food and total intake) did not predict exploration trait, but they did predict active trait. These results suggest that the food neophobia test in our study resulted in context-specific behaviours, or that behavioural responses to a novel food present different underlying personality traits. The application of food neophobia to assess specific or generalized personality traits of dairy calves deserves further work.
食物恐惧，即避免食用新食物，在反刍动物中很常见，可能为测试个体对新奇或挑战的反应提供了一种具有生物学相关性和实际意义的方法。我们旨在确定在食物恐惧测试（暴露于新的全混合日粮）中的行为反应是否反映了源自 3 种传统测试（开阔场地、新人类和新物体）的大胆和探索性个性特征，在奶牛犊牛中。我们进行了两次主成分分析，一次使用 3 种传统测试中的行为（3 个因素：“大胆”、“探索”和“活跃”），另一次使用食物恐惧测试中的行为（3 个因素：“进食”、“检查”和“回避”）。回归分析确定了食物恐惧测试的个体因素得分是否可以预测传统测试的因素得分。与我们的预期相反，“回避”（接近和食用新食物的潜伏期）并没有预测大胆特征，而“检查”（检查食物和空桶的时间）和“进食”（进食时间和总摄入量）因素也没有预测探索特征，但它们确实预测了活跃特征。这些结果表明，我们研究中的食物恐惧测试导致了特定于上下文的行为，或者对新食物的行为反应具有不同的潜在个性特征。食物恐惧在评估奶牛犊牛特定或一般个性特征方面的应用值得进一步研究。
