Department of Safety and Animal Welfare, Les Franqueses del Valles, Spain
Research Article
Effect of Male Rabbit Urine on Aggressiveness and Affiliative Interactions in Group-Housing of Unfamiliar Mature Females
Author(s): Eva Cepeda*, Elisabet Tetas, Albert Perez and Francisco Perez
Rabbits are one of the most used animals in biomedical research. Despite being social animals, they are usually kept individually in cages in the research facilities. One limitation to the group-housing is aggression when mixing strange adult animals. Some studies have shown that male urine is effective in decrease the aggressiveness between female animals. We evaluated the behavior of two groups of 4 unfamiliar adult female New Zealand White rabbits for 4 days. One group was sprayed with buck urine prior to the formation of the group, and the other group served as control. The animals were tested in a large pen with an enriched environment to facilitate social housing. The results showed no main effects of treatment on the studied behaviours (aggression, social and agonistic behavior, allogrooming and mounting). In both groups, the frequency of attacks was highest the first day and d.. View More»
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