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Feces littered on the ground by free-roaming cats contain bacteria, viruses, and parasites and pose a significant health risk to humans. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of communal litter box provision on the defecation behavior of a free-roaming cat population. The study was conducted at H temple and its graveyard in the uptown area of old-town Onomichi, Japan. Cat feces were collected and weighed once a week for 4 weeks, at five popular defecation sites in the temple precincts and graveyard, to assess the quantity of feces left by the cats. A commercial cat repellent was then applied to the ground at 11 sites, including the five popular defecation sites, and six communal litter boxes, created by filling repurposed plastic planters with cat litter, were provided at different sites. The feces in the six litter boxes and on the ground at the five defecation sites were collected and weighed once a week for 14 weeks. The behavior of the cats around the litter boxes and defecation sites was captured using trail cameras. The total weight of the feces collected from the ground before the application of the litter boxes and cat repellent was 939 g. Three adult cats were mainly responsible for the feces on the ground. The amount of feces found on the ground around the temple decreased gradually and significantly after the provision application of the litter boxes and repellent, and reached 0 g in the final week of the study. In contrast, the average weight of the feces in the six litter boxes increased gradually and significantly, and reached 65.7 g/litter box/week in the 14th week. The results showed that the provision of litter boxes and the use of repellent is effective in changing the defecation behavior of ownerless free-roaming cats. We recommend promoting the provision of litter boxes to free-roaming cats to reduce fecal pollution in Onomichi and engaging with local cat feeders to participate in the management of the litter boxes, such as cleaning and changing the litter.

This experiment examines the cues used by cattle to discriminate between people, particularly the role played by facial cues. We trained and tested eight Holstein cows 5 days each week for 2 months. For each cow, we used two people, a rewarder and a non-rewarder, of different size and dressed in overalls of the same colour. The operant chamber was a large box within which stood the two people. The cow could see, smell and touch each person. A lever was placed in front of each person. When the cow pushed the lever in front of the rewarder, it received 75g of concentrate and nothing when it pushed on the other one. For each test session, the cows made 10 choices. The placement of the people was determined randomly according to the Gellerman series. The success criterion was defined as at least eight correct choices out of 10 trials for two consecutive sessions (binomial law P

Seven experiments were conducted on four miniature pigs to determine: (1) whether the pigs can discriminate between people wearing the same coloured clothing; (2) what cues they rely on if they could discriminate. For 2 weeks before the experiments began, the pigs were conditioned in a Y-maze to receive raisins from the rewarder wearing dark blue coveralls. They were then given the opportunity to choose the rewarder or non-rewarder in these experiments. Each session consisted of 20 trials. Successful discrimination was that the pig chose the rewarder at least 15 times in 20 trials (P

Behavioural tests using operant conditioning were conducted to examine how miniature pigs discriminate between people. During a 3-week handling period, six 8-week-old pigs were touched and fed raisins as a reward whenever they approached their handler. In subsequent training, the handler and a non-handler wearing dark blue and white coveralls, respectively, and wearing different eau de toilette fragrances sat at each end of a Y-maze. Pigs were rewarded with raisins when they chose the handler. Successful discrimination occurred when the pig chose the handler at least 15 times in 20 trials (P

This study examined the influence of human posture and movement on the behaviour of pigs. Thirty-six 3-week-old crossbred (Duroc × Large White) weanling pigs from five litters were used. In order to identify the main cues that pigs use when interacting with humans, several tests were conducted. Responses to a dummy and a walking human were studied in Experiment 1, and responses to a human looking over a partition and a human approaching and withdrawing were studied in Experiment 2. Latency to initiated tactile contact with a dummy lying face down (LFD) was significantly (P < 0.01) shorter than that with a dummy standing straight (SS) or a dummy stooping down (SD) at distances of 1 m and 2 m. Latency to contact in SS treatment was significantly (P < 0.01) longer than that to SD treatment at a distance of 1 m, but there was no significant difference in latency to the two postures at 2 m. A flight zone toward humans existed in the pigs. The height of a partition which screened a human did not influence the response of the pigs. The pigs showed less (P < 0.05) withdrawal to a human moving away than to a human approaching, and they spent significantly (P < 0.05) more time in close proximity of a human in a quadrupedal posture than a human in a standing posture. In conclusion, posture, distance, type of movement and direction of approach of a human affect a pig's fear response.

This study examined the effects of darkness and shadows on the behavioral responses of piglets. Twenty-six 1-week-old piglets were used for two tests. In the test of ‘response to darkness', piglets were held in an enclosure, then allowed access to a like-sized adjacent enclosure. Treatments (original enclosure and exposed enclosure) were light to light, light to dark, dark to light, dark to dark with provision of dazzling light beam, dark to dark with provision of a light beam from the back, and dark to dark. The stimuli evaluated in the test of ‘response to shadows' were a vertically striped shadow, horizontally striped shadows, painted black and white vertical stripes, painted black and white horizontal stripes, a moving shadow of human shape, a spot light, and no shadows as a control. The piglets significantly ( P P

This study examined how handling of individual animals affected their responses to humans, and whether they discriminated among humans based on previous experience. Twelve 4-week-old crossbred weanling pigs from three litters were allotted at random within litters to one of two treatments: handling (n = 6) and no-handling (n = 6). The pigs in the handling treatment received individual handling from the same person for 10 min day−1, 5 days a week for 3 weeks. The pigs in the no-handling treatment had no contact with humans apart from that received during routine husbandry. A ‘human test’, a ‘catching test’ and a ‘walking human test’ were conducted to see the effect of individual handling on the responses of pigs toward humans. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare the treatments. With the progression of the handling treatment, the mean elapsed time until pigs initiated physical contact with the handler significantly (P < 0.01) decreased and the total contact time significantly (P < 0.01) increased. The transitional patterns between physical interactions with the handler became more complex with time. Pigs in the handling treatment touched and interacted with the experimenters significantly (P < 0.01) sooner and longer than pigs in the no-handling treatment, regardless of whether this ‘human test’ was conducted by the handler or an unfamiliar person. The non-handled pigs showed avoidance behavior toward a walking or sitting human in the ‘walking human test’ and ‘human test’. When the responses of the handled pigs toward the stranger and the handler were compared in the ‘human test’ and ‘catching test’, they significantly (P < 0.01) preferred to interact with the handler. In conclusion, the handled pigs reduced their fear of humans in general, but they responded differently to familiar and unfamiliar individuals.

This study examined whether regular handling influenced the behavioral response and patterns of the pigs toward a human during the progress of the treatment. Eighteen 4-week-old crossbred weanling pigs from three litters were allotted at random within litters to one of two treatments. The pigs in the handling treatment were individually identified and received regular handling from the experimenter for 15 min, three times per week for 4 weeks. Besides this treatment, the pigs in the handling treatment received brushing for 15 min, once per week for 3 weeks. The pigs in the no-handling treatment had no contact with humans apart from that received during routine husbandry. A catching test was conducted on the pigs in the handling treatment once a week for 4 weeks, and the same test was imposed on the pigs in the no-handling treatment at the start of the experiment. At the end of the experimental period, an experimenter unknown to the pigs conducted the catching test on both treatment groups. The response of the pigs toward the experimenter was classified as either approaching or avoiding behaviors. Specific transitional patterns existed in pigs' physical interaction with a human. During the progression of the handling treatment, the proportion of avoidance behavior significantly (P < 0.05) decreased and the mean aversion score also significantly (P < 0.05) decreased. The variety of physical interactions significantly (P < 0.05) increased. As a consequence, the number of interactions observed in the handling treatment was more than that of the no-handling treatment during the catching test at the end of the experiment. The pigs receiving the regular handling repeatedly tried to make frequent physical contact with the experimenter in spite of repeated chasing and catching events. In conclusion, handling pigs regularly from 4 to 7 weeks of age increases their propensity to approach humans and the variety of their interactions with a human handler, possibly by reducing their fear of humans.

The sexual behaviors of pigs were observed at a commercial farm to study the selection of mating partners in boars and estrous sows under multi-sire mating. In Experiment 1, three sire groups and nine sow groups were used to characterize the courtship behavior between boars and sows. The flow diagram of the behaviors constructed by sequence analysis revealed that ‘nosing’ by boars played an important role to induce sows to stand still, which in turn motivated boars to mount. In Experiment 2, two sire groups and four sow groups were used. Each sire group consisted of three Duroc boars raised from the same litter. Each sow group consisted of eight crossbred sows in which estrus had been induced. Each sire group was assigned to a sow group for 48 h, and their sexual behaviors were recorded continuously with an infrared camera connected to a time lapse video recorder. The same procedure was repeated 3 months later with the same sire groups and different sow groups, which made two observations per sire group. Time spent on courtship behavior with each sow varied significantly (P

This study was designed to determine whether periodic exposure to pre-recorded sound associated with feed delivery and consumption would alter feed intake or feeding pattern of lambs provided with fresh feed once daily. Thirty cross-bred lambs were randomly assigned to 6 pens. The trial lasted 44 days (30 July to 11 September 1982) and consisted of a 4-day acclimation to test facilities, and then cycles of 4 days without sound stimulation followed by 4 days with sound stimulation. Sound stimulation consisted of 6-min broadcasts, every 3 h, of sounds associated with feed delivery and eating. Lambs were observed continuously for 24 h on 3 days when lambs were subjected to sound stimulation and 3 days when they were not. The recorded sound stimulation affected neither feed intake nor feeding behavior. Lambs largely ignored the recorded sounds, and total feed intakes during 20 sound-stimulated vs. 20 non-sound-stimulated days were 1234 vs. 1240 kg, respectively. There was a rhythmic feeding pattern at 1–2-h intervals, synchronously throughout the barn, and this was not affected by the 6 min of sound stimulation at 3-h intervals. There were no major peaks in feeding activity except after the offering of fresh feed in the morning. Feeding activity did not change with sunrise or sunset, and peaks of eating activity were distributed at even time-intervals throughout the 24 h. The overall means per lamb for the total time spent eating, the number of eating bouts (separate eating incidents), the average time eating per bout and the number of drinking episodes across the 6 observation days were 118.8 min, 22.6 times, 5.5 min and 9.6 times, respectively.

The mating behavior of boars toward a herd of sows in a mating pen was observed for 72 h at a commercial swine farm. Mating pens consisted of two to four purebred boars and eight crossbred sows. The observation was conducted on a total of four pens during summer 1987. Boars often mounted sows in estrus, but rarely attempted to mount anestrous sows. Total numbers of mounting events varied among boars in a pen. Mounting efficiencies (number of copulations per number of mounting events) were