Noninvasive Monitoring of Hormones in Bird Droppings: Physiological Validation, Sampling, Extraction, Sex Differences, and the Influence of Diet on Hormone Metabolite Levels
During the past several years, the noninvasive measurement of steroid metabolites from mammalian feces and bird droppings has become more and more popular. With an increasing acceptance of the method, investigators may become less aware of the need to validate their assays. It is shown why such validations are essential for each new species investigated […]
A novel operant conditioning test to determine whether dairy cows dislike passageways that are dark or covered with excreta
Both the presence of slurry and dark conditions may deter dairy cows from using passageways in cubicle accommodation, thus restricting movement and normal behaviour. We attempted to train seven dairy cows to recognize the quantity of reward offered in a transparent tube containing molasses in a Y-maze. Only one cow failed to consistently select the […]
The Ability of Cattle to Distinguish between, and their Preference for, Floors with Different Levels of Friction, and their Avoidance of Floors Contaminated with Excreta
The ability of dairy cows to discriminate between floors with a smooth epoxy resin surface or with surface-applied bauxite aggregates of mean diameters 0.5 mm, 1.2 mm or 2.5 mm (having coefficients of static friction of 0.35, 0.42, 0.49 and 0.74, respectively) was recorded when they were offered the opportunity to walk down paired floor […]