Clicker Training as an Applied Refinement Measure in Chickens

When using chickens in animal studies, the handling of these animals for sample collection or general examinations is considered stressful due to their prey nature. For the study presented here, plasma and salivary corticosterone as well as New Area Test behavior and fecal output were used to evalua...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Animals (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 24; p. 3836
Main Authors:	Mählis, Gordon, Kleine, Anne, Lüschow, Dörte, Bartel, Alexander, Wiegard, Mechthild, Thoene-Reineke, Christa
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Switzerland MDPI AG 01-12-2023
Subjects:	animal behavior Animal culture Animal experimentation animal husbandry animal welfare Behavior Birds Corticosterone Experiments hen Hormones immobilization Immunology Laboratory animals Pathogens Plasma Poultry Serology Stress Stress (Psychology) training of animals Germany Norway hen animal husbandry stress training of animals immobilization animal welfare animal behavior positive reinforcement training clicker training corticosterone metabolic profiling
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Summary:	When using chickens in animal studies, the handling of these animals for sample collection or general examinations is considered stressful due to their prey nature. For the study presented here, plasma and salivary corticosterone as well as New Area Test behavior and fecal output were used to evaluate whether it is possible to influence this stress perception using a three-week clicker training program. The results indicate that clicker training seems to be a suitable refinement measure in the sense of cognitive enrichment for the husbandry of this species. However, since it was also shown that three-week training was not sufficient to sustainably reduce the stress perception with regard to prolonged stressor exposure, and since it was also evident that manipulations such as routine blood sampling are perceived as less stressful than assumed, further studies with prolonged training intervals and situations with higher stressor potential are warranted. Also, further parameters for training assessment must be considered. For the general use of training as a supportive measure in animal experiments, its proportionality must be considered, particularly considering the expected stress and adequate training time.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	2076-2615 2076-2615
DOI:	10.3390/ani13243836