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Author (up) Baciadonna, L.; McElligott, A.G.; Briefer, E.F.
Title Goats favour personal over social information in an experimental foraging task Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Peer J Abbreviated Journal
Volume 1 Issue Pages
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Baciadonna2013 Serial 6269
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Author (up) Briefer Freymond, S.; Briefer, E.F.; Niederhäusern, R.V.; Bachmann, I.
Title Pattern of Social Interactions after Group Integration: A Possibility to Keep Stallions in Group Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication PLoS ONE Abbreviated Journal PLoS ONE
Volume 8 Issue 1 Pages e54688 EP -
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Abstract <p>Horses are often kept in individual stables, rather than in outdoor groups, despite such housing system fulfilling many of their welfare needs, such as the access to social partners. Keeping domestic stallions in outdoor groups would mimic bachelor bands that are found in the wild. Unfortunately, the high level of aggression that unfamiliar stallions display when they first <italic>encounter each other</italic> discourages owners from keeping them in groups. However, this level of aggression is likely to be particularly important only during group integration, when the dominance hierarchy is being established, whereas relatively low aggression rates have been observed among stable feral bachelor bands. We investigated the possibility of housing breeding stallions owned by the Swiss National Stud in groups on a large pasture (5 stallions in 2009 and 8 stallions in 2010). We studied the pattern of agonistic, ritual and affiliative interactions after group integration (17–23 days), and the factors influencing these interactions (time after group integration, dominance rank, age or experience of group housing). We found that stallions displayed generally more ritual than agonistic and than affiliative interactions. The frequency of agonistic and ritual interactions decreased quickly within the first three to four days. The frequency of affiliative interactions increased slowly with time before decreasing after 9–14 days. A stable hierarchy could be measured after 2–3 months. The highest-ranking males had less ritual interactions than the lowest-ranking. Males had also less agonistic, ritual and affiliative interactions if they had already been housed in a group the previous year. Therefore, we found that breeding stallions could be housed together on a large pasture, because the frequency of agonistic interactions decreased quickly and remained at a minimal level from the fourth day following group integration. This housing system could potentially increase horse welfare and reduce labour associated with horse management.</p>
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Publisher Public Library of Science Place of Publication Editor
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5656
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Author (up) Briefer, E.F.; Haque, S.; Baciadonna, L.; McElligott, A.G.
Title Goats excel at learning and remembering a highly novel cognitive task Type Journal Article
Year 2014 Publication Frontiers in Zoology Abbreviated Journal Front. Zool.
Volume 11 Issue 1 Pages 20
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Abstract The computational demands of sociality (maintaining group cohesion, reducing conflict) and ecological problems (extractive foraging, memorizing resource locations) are the main drivers proposed to explain the evolution cognition. Different predictions follow, about whether animals would preferentially learn new tasks socially or not, but the prevalent view today is that intelligent species should excel at social learning. However, the predictions were originally used to explain primate cognition, and studies of species with relatively smaller brains are rare. By contrast, domestication has often led to a decrease in brain size, which could affect cognition. In domestic animals, the relaxed selection pressures compared to a wild environment could have led to reduced social and physical cognition. Goats possess several features commonly associated with advanced cognition, such as successful colonization of new environments and complex fission-fusion societies. Here, we assessed goat social and physical cognition as well as long-term memory of a complex two-step foraging task (food box cognitive challenge), in order to investigate some of the main selection pressures thought to affect the evolution of ungulate cognition.
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ISSN 1742-9994 ISBN Medium
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Briefer2014 Serial 6376
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Author (up) Briefer, E.F.; Mandel, R.; Maigrot, A.-L.; Briefer Freymond, S.; Bachmann, I.; Hillmann, E.
Title Perception of emotional valence in horse whinnies Type Journal Article
Year 2017 Publication Frontiers in Zoology Abbreviated Journal
Volume 14 Issue 1 Pages 8
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Abstract Non-human animals often produce different types of vocalisations in negative and positive contexts (i.e. different valence), similar to humans, in which crying is associated with negative emotions and laughter is associated with positive ones. However, some types of vocalisations (e.g. contact calls, human speech) can be produced in both negative and positive contexts, and changes in valence are only accompanied by slight structural differences. Although such acoustically graded signals associated with opposite valence have been highlighted in some species, it is not known if conspecifics discriminate them, and if contagion of emotional valence occurs as a result. We tested whether domestic horses perceive, and are affected by, the emotional valence of whinnies produced by both familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics. We measured physiological and behavioural reactions to whinnies recorded during emotionally negative (social separation) and positive (social reunion) situations.
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Briefer2017 Serial 6049
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Author (up) Briefer, E.F.; McElligott, A.G.
Title Rescued goats at a sanctuary display positive mood after former neglect Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Appl Anim Behav Sci Abbreviated Journal
Volume 146 Issue Pages
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Briefer2013 Serial 6287
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Author (up) Briefer, E.F.; Padilla de la Torre, M.; McElligott, A.G.
Title Mother goats do not forget their kids' calls Type Journal Article
Year 2012 Publication Proc R Soc B Abbreviated Journal
Volume 279 Issue Pages
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Briefer2012 Serial 6282
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