Refining a novel on-farm attention bias test to measure anxious states in sheep (AEC14/28)

Abstract

Animal welfare is an increasingly important aspect of livestock production systems and there is a need to develop tests that can identify sheep that are more resilient and cope better with our production systems. This study further validated and refined a novel behavioural test for sheep as a measure of anxious states. The original test method took 3 minutes per animal and required some prior training. One objective of this project was to refine the test, to take less than 3 minutes per animal and to remove the need for prior training, so that it could be applied on-farm to larger numbers of animals. Another objective of the study was to pharmacologically validate the test as a measure of anxious states, using the drugs diazepam and m-Chlorophenylpiperazine to reduce and induce anxious states respectively prior to testing.