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Is the analytical framework used by ethologists sufficient to study the mental states of non-human animals (NHAs) at the appropriate level of complexity? To address this question our strategy was to i) reveal the experimental and analytic habits of scientists of different disciplines in the literature, and ii) use "intention" as a vector in an interdisciplinary prospect of the study of NHAs mental states. Our own intention was to outline the specific orientations and possible impasses of the ethological analytical framework which limits the consideration of NHAs intentions. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature published between 2016 and 2020 in two steps: 1. through a first corpus, we identified the terms used in studies of NHAs intentions and 2. on this basis, 111 articles related to intentions in NHAs were selected. By analysing them using a co-occurrences network of the authors’ keywords, ten scientific approaches to intention in NHAs were identified. Our main findings are that i) the term « intention » is very seldom used in studies of NHAs; ii) approaches developed in humans are rarely transposed in these studies; and iii) in such few studies, it is not the NHAs intentions which are under question, but the link between NHAs and human intentions. This study highlights the limitations of the current theoretical framework used to study non-human animals’ cognition, which does not allow for the full spectrum of non-human cognitive specificities.

International audience; In sheep, the bond between the dam and her lambs is established during the first hours of a lamb's life. Genetic variability for behavioural reactivity of ewes assessed in an arena test performed 24 hr after lambing has already been reported. However, there is no evidence that this reactivity represents the ewe's maternal reactivity at lambing in outdoor conditions. The objective of this study was to investigate whether or not the behavioural reactivity of ewes in the arena test is genetically related to their maternal reactivity measured at lambing. A total of 935 Romane ewes were studied. The maternal reactivity of ewes at the outdoor lambing site was recorded in response to a human approach and to the handling of the lambs. Their behavioural reactivity was also recorded 24 hr post-lambing in the arena test that involved a separation from the litter and a human presence. Flight distance, aggressive reaction, time to restore contact with the litter, maternal behaviour scores and vocalizations recorded at the lambing site were heritable (0.12-0.34). All of these behaviours were genetically correlated with the behavioural reactivity in the arena test. The highest genetic correlations (from 0.60 to 0.90) were found amongst maternal behavioural scores, flight distance and high-pitched bleats. In conclusion, behavioural reactivity in the arena test can be used to assess early maternal reactivity in standardized conditions. Phenotyping of ewes' behavioural reactivity with a simplified arena test can be performed for genetic improvement in maternal behaviour in sheep.

L’article présente le retour d’expérience sur la conduite de l’interdisciplinarité dans 14 projets d’un programme sur la gestion intégrée de la santé des animaux. Les difficultés rencontrées portent sur l’acculturation et l’équilibre entre disciplines, l’animation scientifique et les publications. Le degré d’interdisciplinarité des projets va de la juxtaposition à l’intégration des disciplines. Les recommandations proposées aux porteurs de projet sont notamment le décentrage des questions disciplinaires pendant la phase de conception, une mise en œuvre basée sur une animation agile, et, pendant la phase de bilan, une analyse de l’apport de l’interdisciplinarité à la question initiale. Pour renforcer l’interdisciplinarité, le pilotage des programmes interdisciplinaires devrait donner la priorité à l’acculturation des chercheurs à l’interdisciplinarité, apporter un appui à la conception de projets et analyser le degré d’intégration des disciplines atteint dans les projets.

Les ruminants sont des animaux sensibles, doués de capacités émotionnelles et cognitives, pouvant être soumis à différents types de douleur (excès de nociception ou neuropathique) et ceci dans différents contextes (élevage/expérimentation). L’évaluation de ces douleurs est bien souvent délicate car, pour la plupart des cas, il n’existe pas d'indicateur unique et spécifique mais plutôt un ensemble d'indicateurs dont les valeurs informatives sont souvent complémentaires. Une évaluation adéquate de la douleur est essentielle afin d'optimiser sa prise en charge et utiliser au mieux l'arsenal thérapeutique actuellement à la disposition des prescripteurs. En effet, les molécules ayant des mécanismes d’action différents, il est nécessaire de pouvoir quantifier l’intensité douloureuse et évaluer le type de douleur mis en cause. A travers cette synthèse, nous montrerons en quoi : i) l’évaluation du type et du niveau de douleur est indispensable à une prise en charge optimale de la douleur, ii) qu’une évaluation reposant sur une approche multiparamétrique est la plus adaptée à notre objectif., Ruminants are sentient beings, endowed with emotional and cognitive abilities, which can perceive different types of pain (nociceptive or neuropathic) in different types of contexts (breeding / experimentation). Assessing pain is often difficult because, in most situations of pain, there is not a unique and specific indicator but rather a set of complementary indicators. An accurate assessment of pain is essential to optimize care and use of the therapeutic arsenal currently available to prescribers. Indeed, the therapeutic arsenal with different mechanisms of action, it is necessary to quantify pain intensity and the type of pain assessment. Through this review, we will show how: i) accurate assessment is essential for optimal management of pain, ii) method of assessment depends on the type of pain that is suspected and can be based on a multiparametric approach, a limited number, or even a single indicator as appropriate.

Qu’ils soient élevés à des fins commerciales ou expérimentales, les animaux de rente sont confrontés tout au long de leur vie à des pratiques potentiellement sources de douleurs : interventions de convenance et d’élevage (castration, écornage…) ; interventions chirurgicales (césariennes, implantation en chronique de cathéters…). L’élaboration d’outils d’évaluation des douleurs ressenties par les animaux et de traitements pharmacologiques nécessite une bonne connaissance des mécanismes impliqués dans l’apparition et la modulation de ces douleurs. L’objectif de cette revue est de rapporter les connaissances acquises au cours des dernières années qui ont de l’intérêt pour la gestion de la douleur des animaux d’élevage. Les connaissances présentées sont en grande partie issues d’études conduites chez les rongeurs dont les conclusions sont applicables aux animaux de rente. La revue est constituée de trois parties complémentaires. La première décrit les différentes étapes d’élaboration, de transmission et d’intégration sensorielle et émotionnelle des messages nociceptifs impliqués dans l’apparition de la douleur. La deuxième partie décrit les différents types de modulation qui peuvent activer ou inhiber la transmission des messages nociceptifs. La troisième partie décrit les différents processus neurophysiologiques qui accompagnent la douleur et peuvent la moduler (inflammation, activation du système nerveux autonome et du système neuroendocrinien)., Whether bred for commercial or experimental purposes, farm animals are subjected, throughout their lives, to potentially painful practices: interventions for convenience or for livestock care (e.g. castration, dehorning) or surgery (e.g. caesarian section, implantations of permanent catheters). The development of tools to assess pain experienced by the animals and of pharmacological treatment requires good knowledge of the mechanisms involved in the onset and modulation of pain. The objective of our review is to report knowledge obtained in recent years that have an interest for pain management in livestock animals. The knowledge presented is largely derived from studies conducted on rodents and applicable to farm animals. Our review consists of three complementary parts. The first part describes the various stages of development, transmission and sensory and emotional integration of nociceptive messages involved in the onset of pain. The second part describes the different types of modulation that can activate or inhibit the transmission of nociceptive signals. The third part describes the neurophysiological processes that accompany pain and that can modulate it (inflammation, activation of the autonomic nervous system and neuroendocrine system).

International audience; Gentle handling seems to elicit positive states in sheep. The study investigated whether spatial distance alters sheep responses to brushing and whether spatial distance is influenced by reactivity. Twenty Romane ewes were assessed in three sessions: in Sessions 1 and 3, one grid separated the test animal from pen mates, with no distance between them, and in Session 2 two grids separated the test animal from pen mates by a distance of about 1.7 m. Ewes had been genetically selected for low (R−) or high (R+) behavioural reactivity to social isolation. Body postures, head orientation, ear postures, closed and half-closed eyes, tail wagging and feeding behaviour, in addition to heart rate (HR) and HR variability, as the root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD), standard deviation of all normal-to-normal (NN) intervals (SDNN), RMSSD/SDNN ratio and ratio between low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) powers (LF/HF) were assessed. Data were analysed using generalized linear models and linear mixed models. Session, genetic line and phase (pre-, brushing and post-brushing) were considered fixed effects. Increased distance in Session 2 might not have influenced ewes’ responses. Fewer changes in ear postures were noted in Session 3 than 1 (P

International audience; Cortisol is often used as a stress indicator in animal behaviour research. Cortisol is commonly measured in plasma and can also be measured in saliva. Saliva contains only the free form of cortisol, which is biologically active, and saliva sampling is not invasive and may therefore be less stressful. Our study aims to guide the choice between the measurements of cortisol in plasma v. saliva depending on experimental conditions. We analysed the effect of the level of cortisol in plasma on the concentration of cortisol in saliva compared to plasma and the effect of saliva sampling v. jugular venepuncture on the cortisol response. In Experiment 1, blood and saliva were collected simultaneously under conditions in which the expected cortisol release in blood varied: in an undisturbed situation or after the isolation of lambs from their pens or the administration of exogenous ACTH (six animals per treatment). In Experiment 2, we subjected lambs to saliva sampling, venepuncture or neither of these for 8 days to evaluate how stressful the sampling method was and whether the animals habituated to it by comparing the responses between the first and last days (four animals per treatment). All animals were equipped with jugular catheters to allow regular blood sampling without disturbance. Samples were collected 15 min before any treatment was applied, then at various time points up to 135 min in Experiment 1 and 45 min in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, we observed a strong correlation between salivary and plasma cortisol concentrations (r = 0.81, P < 0.001). The ratio between salivary and plasma cortisol concentrations was 0.106 on average. This ratio was higher and more variable when the cortisol concentration in plasma was below 55 nmol/l. In Experiment 2, venepuncture induced a larger cortisol response than saliva sampling or no intervention on day 1 (P < 0.02); this difference was not observed on day 8, suggesting that sheep habituated to venepuncture. We recommend the measurement of cortisol in saliva to avoid stressing animals. However, when the expected concentration in plasma is below 55 nmol/l, the cortisol in saliva will reflect only the free fraction of the cortisol, which may be a limitation if the focus of the experiment is on total cortisol. In addition, if cortisol is measured in plasma and blood is collected by venepuncture, we recommend that sheep be habituated to venepuncture, at least to the handling required for a venepuncture.

Automated quantification of the behaviour of freely moving animals is increasingly needed in ethology, ecology, genetics and evolution. State-of-the-art approaches often require tags to identify animals, high computational power for data collection and processing, and are sensitive to environmental conditions, which limits their large-scale utilisation. Here we introduce a new automated tracking system based on millimetre-wave radars for real time robust and high precision monitoring of untagged animals. To validate our system, we tracked 64 sheep in a standard indoor behavioural test used for genetic selection. First, we show that the proposed radar application is faster and more accurate than conventional video and infrared tracking systems. Next, we illustrate how new behavioural estimators can be derived from the radar data to assess personality traits in sheep for behavioural phenotyping. Finally, we demonstrate that radars can be used for movement tracking at larger spatial scales, in the field, by adjusting operating frequency and radiated electromagnetic power. Millimetre-wave radars thus hold considerable promises for high-throughput recording of the behaviour of animals with various sizes and locomotor modes, in different types of environments.

Vocal expression of emotions has been observed across species and could provide a non-invasive and reliable means to assess animal emotions. We investigated if pig vocal indicators of emotions revealed in previous studies are valid across call types and contexts, and could potentially be used to develop an automated emotion monitoring tool. We performed an analysis of an extensive and unique dataset of low (LF) and high frequency (HF) calls emitted by pigs across numerous commercial contexts from birth to slaughter (7414 calls from 411 pigs). Our results revealed that the valence attributed to the contexts of production (positive versus negative) affected all investigated parameters in both LF and HF. Similarly, the context category affected all parameters. We then tested two different automated methods for call classification; a neural network revealed much higher classification accuracy compared to a permuted discriminant function analysis (pDFA), both for the valence (neural network: 91.5%; pDFA analysis weighted average across LF and HF (cross-classified): 61.7% with a chance level at 50.5%) and context (neural network: 81.5%; pDFA analysis weighted average across LF and HF (cross-classified): 19.4% with a chance level at 14.3%). These results suggest that an automated recognition system can be developed to monitor pig welfare on-farm.

La question des émotions des animaux d’élevage s’inscrit dans la volonté d’améliorer les conditions d’élevage en prenant en compte leur bien-être. La genèse des émotions repose sur la capacité cognitive des individus à percevoir, évaluer et réagir à leur environnement. La capacité de perception met en jeu différentes sensorialités et participe à la reconnaissance des éléments de l’environnement de l’animal sans nécessairement déclencher d’émotions. Les situations déclenchantes d’émotion les plus étudiées chez les animaux d’élevage sont la nouveauté, la séparation sociale ou la présence d’un être humain. De plus, les réactions émotionnelles, évaluées par les réponses comportementales, endocriniennes et neurovégétatives sont modulées par le genre, l’état physiologique ou certaines hormones comme la mélatonine. Les structures cérébrales du réseau neuronal des émotions sont impliquées dans la perception et le traitement des informations de l’environnement, et/ou dans l’expression des réponses émotionnelles. Chez les animaux d’élevage, les structures cérébrales les plus étudiées sont le système olfactif pour la perception, le cortex frontal et l’amygdale pour le traitement des informations, le noyau paraventriculaire de l’hypothalamus pour les réponses endocriniennes. D’autres travaux suggèrent le rôle potentiel de structures du tronc cérébral dans les réponses neurovégétatives et de la substance grise périaqueducale dans les réponses comportementales et plus largement dans les stratégies d’adaptation. En perspective, il est maintenant nécessaire d’étudier l’impact de l’expérience précoce sur le développement du réseau neuronal des émotions et de mieux comprendre la part de l’évaluation cognitive dans la genèse des émotions.

International audience; The common practice of artificially rearing lambs from prolific meat breeds of sheep constitutes a welfare issue due to increased mortality rates and negative health issues. In this multidisciplinary study, we investigated the possible short- and mid-term advantages of artificially feeding fresh ewe's milk instead of commercial milk replacer on lambs' growth, health and welfare. Romane lambs were either separated from their mothers on D3 and fed with Lacaune ewes' milk (LAC, n = 13) or milk replacer (REP, n = 15), or they were reared by their mothers (MOT, n = 15). On D45, they were weaned, gathered in single-sex groups until the end of the study on D150. Lamb performance and biomarkers of overall health were assessed by measuring: growth, dirtiness of the perianal area, enteric pathogens in the faeces, total antioxidant status and redox status assessed by plasma reduced glutathione/oxidised glutathione ratio, and immune response after vaccination against chlamydiosis. As an exploratory approach, blood cell transcriptomic profiles were also investigated. Last, qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA) was performed as an integrated welfare criterion. Lacaune ewes' milk and REP never differed in their average daily gain but grew less than MOT lambs in the early suckling period and just after weaning. No effect was detected afterwards. On D30, LAC and REP lambs had lower total antioxidant and higher redox status than MOT lambs but did not differ among themselves. Lacaune ewes' milk and MOT had a cleaner perianal area than REP lambs on D21, while faecal pathogen infection did not vary between the treatment groups. After vaccination, LAC also had a stronger immune response on D90 compared to REP lambs. Transcriptome analysis performed on D150 showed differential gene expression, mainly in relation to inflammatory, immune and cell cycle response, between male lambs of the LAC group and those of the MOT and REP groups. Based on QBA, LAC lambs never differed from MOT lambs in their general activity and varied from REP only on D21; REP lambs were always more agitated than MOT lambs. In conclusion, artificial milk feeding impaired early growth rate, health and emotional state mainly during the milk feeding period and at weaning. Feeding artificially reared lambs with fresh ewe's milk partly mitigated some of the negative effects induced by milk replacer but without achieving the full benefit of being reared by the mother. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Animal Consortium.

National audience; Avoir l’ambition d’améliorer le bien-être des animaux d’élevage nécessite de pouvoir évaluer le niveau de bien-être ou de mal-être d’un animal ou d’un ensemble d’animaux. Cette volonté peut être motivée par un souhait d’autodiagnostic de l’éleveur, mais aussi par des processus de certification comme l’étiquetage du niveau de bien-être dans les élevages, visant à informer les consommateurs et à permettre des actes d’achat éclairés. Certains besoins réglementés des animaux peuvent par ailleurs faire l’objet de contrôles.Pour évaluer le bien-être animal de façon la plus objective possible, des référentiels ont été conçus par un large éventail d’acteurs concernés. Basés sur des indicateurs différents selon l’espèce, le type de production, l’âge des d’animaux ou encore le type d’élevage, ces référentiels servent de guides pour adapter les évaluations sur le terrain.Ce fascicule explique en quoi consistent les indicateurs de bien-être, leur mesure et le processus d’intégration permettant d’obtenir une information fiable sur le niveau de bien-être d’un élevage.Cet ouvrage est le deuxième d’une série de trois fascicules consacrés au bien-être animal.

In livestock, improving maternal reactivity towards the litter is an important issue in breeding strategies to promote production and animal welfare. As of yet, no studies have investigated the within-breed genetic variation of maternal reactivity in sheep. The objective of this study was to estimate the genetic parameters of maternal reac-tivity traits. A total of 1,095 primiparous and 1,441 multiparous Romane ewes were phenotyped 24hr postlambing using a behavioural test (arena test, AT) over a 10-year experimental period. The test consisted of three successive phases evaluating the ewe's attraction to her litter, reactivity to separation from her litter, and reactivity to a conflict between attraction to her litter and avoidance of a motionless human. The ewes were reared exclusively on rangelands (South of France) and lambed outdoors in the spring. High-pitched bleating and low-pitched bleating in the AT were mostly highly heritable (0.39‒0.46). Heritabilities were moderate for proximity to the litter in the presence of a human (0.27) and low for locomotion and vigilance in the AT (0.09‒0.15). The measurements of a given behaviour in the three phases of the AT were highly genetically correlated. Few genetic correlations were found between the different behavioural traits in the AT, the highest correlations being between high-pitched bleating and low-pitched bleating (−0.43 to −0.77). In conclusion, our find-ings demonstrate moderate-to-high heritability for maternal reactivity traits. These traits could be included in genetic selection schemes to enhance maternal attachment provided there is no unfavourable link with other production traits.

Epub 2017 May 04; Traumatic situations in animals induce responses including pain, expressed through behavioural and physiological pathways such as inflammation, oxidative stress, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and autonomic nervous system. As some of these systems can also be activated during excitement and situations with a positive valence, their use as a means to assess pain response is difficult. We explored (i) how these five aforementioned pathways change in sheep exposed to various degrees of invasiveness of surgical procedures despite a therapeutic regimen and (ii) whether a multiparametric analysis that combines information from these five pathways enhances the discrimination between these situations, and estimates the relative importance of these pathways in the response. We used 24 adult sheep split into four treatments: Control (C; no fasting, no anaesthesia, no surgery), Sham (S; fasting, anaesthesia, no surgery), Rumen Canulation (R; fasting, anaesthesia, rumen cannulation) and Rumen-Duodenal-Ileum cannulation (RDI; fasting, anaesthesia, cannulation of the rumen, duodenum and ileum). Sheep' responses were measured for 5 days after surgery. When considering each behavioural or physiological pathway independently, discrimination between treatments was acceptable, its sensitivity (Se) ranging from 0% to 100%, and its specificity (Sp) ranging from 62% to 100%. The multiparametric analysis gathering information from the five pathways enhanced the effectiveness of discrimination between treatments (Se, 50% to 100%; Sp, 82% to 100%), and gave additional information on the relative contribution of each pathway to the global sheep response. Sheep global response was higher when exposed to a surgery, and increased with the surgery invasiveness. This response relied mostly on inflammation (absolute correlation for haptoglobin, 0.89), HPA (cortisol, 0.85) and behaviour (antalgic postures, 0.85). The multiparametric approach seems to be a promising tool to discriminate between different degrees of invasiveness of surgical procedures.

Emotions, unlike mood, are short-lived reactions associated with specific events. They can be characterized by two main dimensions, their arousal (bodily activation) and valence (negative versus positive). Knowledge of the valence of emotions experienced by domestic and captive animals is crucial for assessing and improving their welfare, as it enables us to minimize the negative emotions that they might experience and to promote positive ones. Emotions can affect vocalizations directly or indirectly through the brain, lungs, larynx or vocal tract. As a result, vocal expression of emotions has been observed across species, and could serve as a non-invasive and potentially very reliable tool to assess animal emotions. In pigs (Sus scrofa), vocal expression of emotions has been relatively well studied. However, it is not known if the vocal indicators revealed in previous studies are valid across call types and contexts. To find this out, we conducted a meta-analysis of the effects of emotional valence on pig vocalizations, including calls recorded in the most common emotional situations encountered by pigs throughout their lives, from birth to slaughter. Our analyses revealed that pigs produced calls characterized by a higher center of gravity, a shorter duration, less noise (lower Wiener entropy), lower formants (measured using the formant dispersion) and LPC coefficients in positive compared to negative contexts. Overall, these vocal parameters could be very useful for developing automated methods to monitor pig welfare on-farm.

Suite à la confirmation de plusieurs cas de PPA sur des sangliers en Belgique, à proximité de la frontière française, la DGAL a saisi plusieurs fois l’Anses en urgence pour répondre à des questions sur : les risques d’introduction du virus responsable de cette maladie enFrance, les mesures de gestion à la frontière Franco-Belge, tant dans la faune sauvage que dans les élevages de suidés.Lors des travaux du GECU PPA, les experts se sont également interrogés sur les méthodes et produits disponibles pour inactiver le virus de la PPA, que ce soit au niveau des laboratoires qui reçoivent des prélèvements ou des cadavres d’animaux, au niveau des camions qui sont/seront utilisés pour le transport des cadavres ou des animaux vivants potentiellement contaminés, au niveau des locaux et matériaux d’élevage ou des matériaux utilisés au clos d’équarrissage, etc.De plus, les laboratoires d’analyse vétérinaires et le Laboratoire National de Référence (LNR) pour la PPA, reçoivent des questions des parties prenantes sur les produits biocides pouvant être utilisés pour décontaminer des matériaux entrés en contact avec des matières potentiellement contaminées par le virus de la PPA. Des interrogations émanent également des entreprises spécialisées dans le développement et la commercialisation de produits biocides (confrontés entre-autres à la réglementation française concernant la manipulation du virus de la PPA).Les réponses à ces interrogations n’étant pas immédiatement et facilement disponibles, dans ce contexte, il apparait opportun d’agir par anticipation et de se saisir de la question de l’inactivation du virus de la PPA, des méthodes de décontamination pouvant être mises en oeuvre ainsi que des produits utilisables et efficaces dans l’éventualité de foyers de PPA en France dans la faune sauvage ou dans la faune domestique.Les questions de l’autosaisine sont les suivantes :« Effectuer une mise à jour des connaissances sur les méthodes et procédés d’inactivation du virus de la PPA et sur la résistance de ce virus dans les différentes matrices potentiellement contaminées.Cette mise à jour portera également sur les produits biocides utilisables pour la décontamination, tant au laboratoire que dans le cas de dépeuplement en élevage de suidés, ou au clos d’équarrissage (tant pour les porcs d’élevage que pour des cadavres de sangliers potentiellement contaminés si ceux-ci devaient y être amenés). »

In sheep, social reactivity and reactivity to humans are relevant behavioral responses that are used to investigate the behavioral adaptation of farm animals to various rearing conditions. Such traits were previously reported as heritable and associated with several QTLs. However, few behavior-related genotype by environment (G × E) interactions have been reported to date. The experiment was performed on 2,989 male and female lambs issued from 30 sires. Every sire had progeny reared under both intensive and extensive conditions. After weaning, all lambs were individually exposed to two standardized behavioral tests. A broad range of behaviors including vocalizations, locomotion, localization, vigilance, and flight distance were assessed. Two complementary statistic approaches, with and without assumptions on the biological significance of behaviors, were performed to investigate social reactivity and reactivity to humans. G × E interactions were investigated based on the genetic correlations estimated for each factor or trait between farming conditions; those significantly different from 1 indicating a G × E. Environmental effects showed that social reactivity and reactivity to humans were higher in intensively reared lambs. The heritability of factors or traits used to measure social reactivity and reactivity to humans was similar in both rearing conditions. Estimated heritabilities were high for vocalizations in response to social isolation, moderate for locomotion and vigilance in response to social isolation, and low for both flight distance to an approaching human and proximity to a motionless human. No significant G × E interaction was found for vocalizations. G × E interactions were found for locomotion, vigilance and flight distance. Genetic correlations between both environments were low to moderate for vigilance, locomotion and flight distance. Vocalization in response to social isolation with or without human presence was identified as a robust trait and could be used to improve sheep sociability, independently of the environment. A G × E interaction was observed for behavioral reactivity to humans. Although moderate, the genetic correlation for this trait between intensive and extensive conditions could be used to select sires in the same environment by taking into account the G × E and to produce in different environments progenies that are less reactive to humans.

« Dans le cadre de la planification, les services de la DGAL se préparent, aux différents échelons, à la mise en œuvre des mesures de lutte contre la peste porcine africaine (PPA) en identifiant les ressources humaines et matérielles nécessaires. Pour la question du dépeuplement en élevage, il est prévu un prestataire national pour la réalisation des chantiers de dépeuplement de gros effectifs porcins en élevage, le reste des chantiers étant et devant être piloté et organisé par les directions départementales en charge de la protection des populations DDecPP avec des moyens locaux. Pour autant, selon la dynamique de diffusion de la maladie, ces dispositifs pourraients’avérer insuffisants et une option pourrait être de transférer des animaux issus de cheptels infectés pour une mise à mort à l'abattoir. Par ailleurs, une stratégie de dépeuplement préemptive à l'image de ce qui a été mis en place lors de l’épisode influenza aviaire 2016-2017 pourrait être également mise en place et nécessiterait également une mobilisation importante des moyens de dépeuplement.Il s'agirait donc plus précisément d'évaluer le risque de diffusion de la PPA, à la fois par le transport et par la persistance du virus au sein des sites d’abattage, lors de la mobilisation d'abattoirs pour dépeupler des foyers. Cette même question est posée pour du dépeuplementpréemptif d'animaux a priori non suspects en périphérie de foyer. Ces cas de figure pourraient se présenter en cas de dépassement des capacités d'intervention sur site Des questions complémentaires liées aux opérations de dépeuplement d'animaux infectés sontégalement posées.- Parmi les méthodes d’euthanasie individuelle, un dispositif à tige perforante suivi d'un jonchage ou une injection létale peuvent être utilisés pour les porcs ainsi que le tir à balle pour les sangliers. Ces méthodes qui peuvent entraîner des effusions de sang sont-elles denature à engendrer un risque supplémentaire de diffusion du virus ?- Les intervenants dans un foyer sont équipés de protections individuelles (EPI) et passent par un sas sanitaire pour sortir de l'exploitation en vue de limiter les risques de diffusion de la maladie. La procédure recommandée pour l'entrée et la sortie d'un élevage infecté estjointe ; quel serait le délai de carence à respecter entre l'intervention dans un foyer et l'intervention dans un élevage sain afin de prévenir tout risque de diffusion de la maladie ? Le délai historiquement préconisé est de 72h et demande à être documenté. »

Notice à Reprendre; Since the communication from the European Commission of its Strategy on Animal Welfare in 2012, theorganizational and regulatory context has evolved with the establishment of the European platform for animal welfare,the adoption of the Regulation (EU) n°2017/625 and the establishment of reference centers for animal welfare. At the same time, scientists have produced up-to-date summaries of knowledge on animal consciousness , reexaminedthe concept of animal welfare or sketched out new visions such as those proposed around the concept of"One welfare". From the presentation and the analysis of these contextual elements, we propose in conclusion somemilestones to help the actors in their strategy to implement new insurance scheme and farming systems; Depuis la présentation par la Commission Européenne de sa stratégie en matière de protection animale en 2012, le contexte organisationnel et réglementaire a évolué avec notamment la mise en place de la plateforme européenne pour le bien-être animal, l’adoption du Règlement UE 2017/625 et le développement de centres de référence nationaux et européens pour le bien-être animal. En parallèle, plusieurs synthèses ou expertises scientifiques ont récemment été produites sur la conscience des animaux, l’actualisation du concept de bien-être animal et le développement du concept « One welfare ». Après avoir présenté et analysé ce paysage organisationnel, règlementaire et scientifique en pleine évolution, nous proposons en conclusion quelques éléments de repère pour aider les acteurs des filières dans leur réflexion pour répondre aux attentes sociétales et construire les élevages de demain.

International audience; The positive aspect of emotions, like pleasure, remains overlooked in birds. Our aim was to contribute to the exploration of facial indicators of positive emotions. To observe contrasting emotional expressions, we used two lines of Japanese quail divergently selected on their inherent fearfulness: a fearful line (long tonic immobility duration: LTI) and a less fearful line (short tonic immobility duration: STI). To induce positive emotions, we gave individual quail the opportunity to perform a rewarding behaviour, dustbathing, in an unfamiliar cage. More STI than LTI quail expressed dustbathing and latencies to dustbathe were significantly shorter in STI than LTI quail. This result indicated that the lines of quail differed in their fearfulness of the situation. We observed crown feather height, throat feather angle and pupil surface before (control) and during dustbathing. We found significant increases in crown feather height, pupil area and angle of throat feathers between the control and the dustbathing phases in STI quail, and pupil area correlated positively with crown feather height. In LTI quail, the angle of throat feathers increased during dustbathing, but the other parameters did not differ. We argue that variation in crown feather height and pupil area may provide indications of positive emotions in Japanese quail.

International audience; Welfare concerns not only the absence of negative emotional experiences but also the presence of positive experiences. However, scientific investigation on positive emotions in farm animals has been long neglected. This study aimed to investigate the perception of sheep to positive stimuli and whether emotional reactivity influences such perception, through behavioural and cardiac indicators. Therefore, 38 Romane ewes belonging to two divergent lines, high (R+) or low (R-) reactive, were submitted to the presence of a familiar experimenter (HUM) or brushing by a familiar experimenter (BRU). The procedure was divided in three phases: before (2.5 min), during (3.0 min) and after (2.5 min) HUM or BRU. Body postures, head orientation, ear changes and postures, closed and half-closed eyes, tail wagging and feeding behaviour were analyzed, and heart rate variability parameters (RMSSD, RMSSD/SDNN and LF/HF ratios) were estimated. Data were analyzed using linear models with different correlation structures. The models considered treatment, genetic line and phase as fixed effects, including their interactions. Brushed ewes showed fewer body posture, head orientation and ear posture changes and a higher proportion of closed and half-closed eyes, tail wagging and rumination during the procedure, when compared to ewes submitted to the human presence (P < 0.05). Both BRU and HUM ewes had lower HR during and after the procedures and higher RMSSD/SDNN rate during the procedures, reflecting the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system in response to both treatments (P < 0.05). Behavioural and cardiac results suggest that both treatments induced a relaxing state in sheep, more pronounced for the brushing treatment. Interestingly, an anticipatory agitation before the treatment was observed mainly in BRU sheep. Highly reactive ewes expressed less head orientation changes and a higher proportion of horizontal ear postures and feeding behaviour in response to brushing than when submitted to human presence (P < 0.05), indicating that brushing might have elicited a more relaxing effect on R+ animals. Differences between R+ and R- ewes suggest that reactivity might modulate sheep responses to assumed positive stimuli.

The study compared the perception of ordinary citizens from Curitiba, Brazil (OB) and Clermont-Ferrand, France (OF), as well as OB, Brazilian veterinarians (VB), biologists (BB) and animal scientists (AB), concerning animal welfare and sentience. An online survey containing 18 open-ended, multiple choices and Likert scale questions was conducted from November 2014 to May 2016. The survey covered questions on demographics, perception of animal welfare, sheep welfare, sentience and animals' emotional capacities. In total, 1103 respondents participated in the survey (388 OB, 350 OF, 248 VB, 92 BB and 25 AB); data were compared using non-parametric tests. Brazilian citizens (46.9%) believed more than OF (3.7%) that welfare is not considered for farm animals and OB attributed higher scores of suffering to sheep during management procedures (median 4, severe suffering) than OF (3, moderate suffering). Additionally, OB gave higher scores of emotions to animals (5) than OF (4). In general, OB and BB had similar perceptions; OB and BB differed from VB and AB who were similar to each other. Citizens (46.9%) and BB (29.3%) believed more than VB (18.5%) and AB (12.0%) that welfare is not considered for farm animals; OB and BB also attributed higher scores of suffering to sheep during management procedures than VB and AB. Women and older respondents showed higher perception of animal welfare issues. There was no clear correlation between perception of animal welfare or sentience and education. Overall, ordinary citizens differed on their perceptions of welfare and sentience in livestock and specifically in sheep, and sheep suffering during management procedures. Ordinary citizens from Curitiba showed higher perception of animal welfare issues as compared to respondents from Clermont-Ferrand and to veterinarians and animal scientists. Ensuring a better consideration of welfare at farm level and in educational programs seems warranted according to the results of this study.

Consequences of prenatal stress on emotional reactivity and cognitive abilities in offspring are under-documented in precocial mammals. Here, we investigated to what extent emotional reactivity, judgment bias and spatial learning abilities of lambs are affected by chronic stress during late pregnancy and by their dams' emotional reactivity. The 20 highest-responsive (HR) and 20 lowest-responsive (LR) ewes from a population of 120 Romane ewes were selected according to their pre-mating reactivity to social isolation in a new environment. Over the final third of pregnancy, 10 HR ewes and 10 LR ewes were exposed daily to various unpredictable aversive events such as restraint, mixing groups and transport while the other 20 selected ewes were not. In a human and an object test, prenatally-stressed lambs were more fearful than control lambs, but the prenatal stress effect was moderated by the reactivity of the mothers: prenatally-stressed lambs from ewes with high emotional reactivity were more affected. Prenatally-stressed lambs did not perform as well as control lambs in a maze test and showed pessimistic-like judgment in a cognitive bias test. Prenatally-stressed lambs were thus characterized by a negative affective state with increased fear reactions and impaired cognitive evaluation. The development of negative moods could have long-lasting consequences on the coping strategies of the lambs in response to their rearing conditions.

International audience; n order to improve well-being of dogs during veterinary visits, we aimed to investigate the effect of human social interactions on behavior and physiology during routine examination. Firstly, we assessed the impact of a standardized veterinary examination on behavioral and physiological indicators of stress in dogs. Secondly, we examined whether the owner's tactile and verbal interactions with the dog influenced behavioral and physiological stress-associated parameters. A randomized within-subjects crossover design was used to examine behavior (n=33), rectal temperature (n=33), heart rate (HR) (n=18), maximal ocular surface temperature (max OST) (n=13) and salivary cortisol concentrations (n=10) in healthy privately owned pet dogs. The study consisted of two experimental conditions: a) "contact" - owner petting and talking to the dog during the examination; b) "non-contact" - owner present during the examination but not allowed to interact with the dog. Our findings showed that the veterinary examinations produced acute stress responses in dogs during both "contact" and "non-contact" conditions, with significant increases in lip licking, HR, and max OST. A significant decrease in attempts to jump off the examination table (p=0.002) was observed during the examination in the "contact" compared to the "non-contact" condition. In addition, interactions of owners showed an attenuating effect on HR (p=0.018) and max OST (p=0.011) in their dogs. The testing order (first vs. second visit) had no impact on behavioral and physiological parameters, suggesting that dogs did not habituate or sensitize to the examination procedure. Moreover, the duration of the owner-dog interactions had no significant impact on the behavioral and physiological responses of their dogs. This study demonstrates that owner-dog interactions improve the well-being of dogs during a veterinary examination. Future research may assist in further understanding the mechanisms associated with reducing stress in dogs in similar settings.

Bibliometrics is a common research instrument for systemic analysis of scientific progress in many disciplines, including veterinary sciences. However, bibliometric analyses are generally biased by limited information included in scientific productions databases. The aim of this study is to propose a method for implementing databases on livestock health and welfare in a bibliometric perspective. By using the detailed classification of the scientific disciplines and the list of keywords of the CAB Abstracts®, queries were first built to combine 120 descriptors related to animal species and 1680 descriptors related to the given thematics. Then, the extraction was done from the Web of Science®. The overall process focused on the research institutes localised in Europe and on publications written in English. To assess the database accuracy, supplementary filters were validated and applied to discard non-specific terms and neighbouring topics. Additional fields for species groups, infectious and non-infectious diseases, welfare components and geographical regions were incorporated according to thematic terminologies specifically established. The final database contains 57,523 articles published over a 12 years’ period (2003–2014). The developed method, based on the complementary use of both the CAB Abstracts® and Web of Science®, can be a reference to allow an adequate semi-automatic retrieval of relevant publications on livestock health and welfare, which will be of use to implement bibliometric study to produce a realistic assessment of tendency for driving science policy. Interestingly, it can be also a model process to be easily applied to implement bibliometric studies for any other scientific thematic domain.

International audience; Farming systems can expose animals to chronic mild stress which is known to induce negative affective state. Affective state in animals, as in humans, can be assessed through behavioral cues. This study aimed to describe the effect of a chronic mild stress, known to induce a negative affective state, on sheep health through their response to vaccination. The study used 15 lambs subjected to a model of chronic mild stress for 15 weeks and 15 lambs reared under conventional farming as a control group. After 7 weeks of stressful treatment, the lambs were individually exposed to a judgment bias test to assess a putative stress-induced 'pessimism.' After 15 weeks of stressful treatment, antibody immune response was measured after an injection of a live vaccine challenge (Chlamydia abortus attenuated vaccine strain 1B). Stressed lambs displayed a pessimistic-like perception in the judgment bias test, revealing a negative affective state. Stressed and control animals showed different immunological reactions to vaccine challenge: stressed sheep had lower hemoglobin concentrations and higher platelet, granulocyte and acute-phase protein concentrations. Antibody response induced by the vaccine strain was not different between stressed and control sheep. Our results suggest that negative affective state induced by chronic stress treatment may induce a stronger inflammatory response to vaccine challenge in sheep. Improvement of animal health may be achieved through consideration of stressors that may affect the emotional and immunological state of sheep.

Faces of conspecifics convey information about identity, but also gaze, and attentional or emotional state. As a cognitive process, face-based emotion recognition can be subject to judgment bias. In this study we investigated whether dairy goats (n=32) would show different responses to 2-D images offaces of familiar conspecifics displaying positive or negative emotional states. We also examined the possible use of images of faces as stimuli in cognitive bias studies. The faces of four subjects were photographed in a positive and a negative situation. Three types of images of ambiguous facial expressions were then created using morphing software (75% positive, 50% positive, and 25%positive). In a test-pen, each goat was exposed for 3 seconds to each type of image, obtained from the same goat. All goats were shown non-morphed faces first, before being shown the three types of morphed faces, balanced for order. Finally, the first non-morphed face was shown again. Spontaneous behavioural reactions including ear postures (forward, backward and asymmetrical) and interactions with the screen (time spent looking or touching) were recorded during the 3 seconds. Results were analysed using REML with repeated measurements. Goats spent more time with their ears forward when the negative was shown compared to the positive(F4,121.3 = 2.51, P = 0.018), indicating greater interest in negative faces. Identity of the photographed goat influenced the time spent with the ears forward (F2,57.4 = 7.01, P = 0.002). We conclude that goats react differently to images of faces displaying different emotional states and that they seem to perceive the emotional valence expressed in these images. Response to morphed faces was not necessarilyintermediate to response to negative and positive faces, and not on a continuum. Further study is thus needed to clarify the potential use of faces in cognitive bias studies.

Chronic stress in farm animals can induce detrimental effects in emotional sensitivity and cognitive function, for example, by altering fearfulness and eliciting pessimistic-like judgment. Based on a few experiments carried out on laboratory animals, we suggest that exposing chronically stressed sheep to an enriched environment could alleviate the detrimental stress-induced effects on fearfulness and judgment. Fifteen lambs (Chronically Stressed lambs, CS) were submitted for 7 weeks to a treatment known to induce chronic stress ( i.e. repeated and unpredictable exposures to various uncontrollable and aversive events every day and/or night). Fifteen other lambs (lambs exposed to Negative and Positive events, NP) were also submitted to the same stressful treatment and, for the last 4 weeks of the stressful treatment, exposed daily to various positive events, i.e. wool brush, positive contact with humans and anticipation of food by a light announcing daily food distribution. Before the treatment, all lambs were individually trained to spatially differentiate between positive and negative reinforced bucket locations with a go/no-go approach response. At the end of the treatment, each lamb was exposed to a judgment test using the same go/no-go design by offering it three ambiguous and unreinforced bucket locations in addition to the two learnt locations. In addition, lambs were exposed to two standard tests of fearfulness (exposure to novelty and suddenness) and human approach test. NP lambs displayed a positive judgement bias: they approached the bucket placed at the ambiguous location that was closest to the positive one faster than CS lambs (3.0s±0.3 vs. 5.9s±1.6; P =0.006). NP lambs approached the human more than their counterparts (15.0±1.4 vs . 7.7±1.5 times in human zone during 10min; P =0.003) and were also more reactive to novelty and suddenness. Thus, repeated exposure lambs to positive events during a stressful period induces an optimistic-like judgment but also increases emotional reactivity. Further studies are thus necessary before promoting such a positive treatment as a method to alleviate negative effects of chronic stress.

The assessment of farm animal welfare requires a good understanding of the animals' affective experiences, including their emotions. Emotions are transient reactions to short-term triggering events and can accumulate to cause longer-lasting affective states, which represent good or bad welfare. Cognition refers to the mechanisms by which animals acquire, process, store and act on information from the environment. The objective of this paper is to highlight the two-way relationships between emotions and cognition that were originally identified in human psychology, and to describe in what ways these can be used to better access affective experiences in farm animals. The first section describes a recent experimental approach based on the cognitive processes that the animal uses to evaluate its environment. This approach offers an integrative and functional framework to assess the animal's emotions more effectively. The second section focuses on the influence of emotions on cognitive processes and describes recently developed methodologies based on that relationship, which may enable an assessment of long-term affective states in animals. The last section discusses the relevance of behavioural strategies to improve welfare in animals by taking their cognitive skills into account. Specific cognitive processes eliciting positive emotions will be emphasised. Research into affective states of animals is progressing rapidly and the ability to scientifically access animal feelings should contribute to the development of innovative farming practices based on the animals' sentience and their cognitive skills in order to truly improve their welfare.

Socio-economic and broader impact. Lauriers de l'INRA

International audience; Chronic stress is considered detrimental for an individual as it is a long-lasting negative emotional state, without or with a limited habituation. The reactivity and sensitivity of animals to stressors depend on the animal's organismic characteristics such as sex. In poultry, the studies dealing with chronic stress were mainly performed on females. Our study then focused on male quail and aimed at assessing the effect of unpredictable and repeated negative stimuli (URNS) on their general activity, tonic immobility, emotional reactivity to a human, a novel object, novel foods or when restrained in a crush cage, as well as on their plasma corticosterone concentrations. Quail were then left undisturbed or submitted to URNS during 6 weeks (n = 12 in each group). The results indicated that disturbed males spent a greater proportion of time far from the human than control ones (on the 1st test, 44.23 ± 5.28 vs 21.80 ± 6.12%, P = 0.01), probably to avoid the human. Disturbed males pecked at the novel object latter (P = 0.03) and less (P = 0.05) than controls. When restrained in a crush cage, disturbed quail were more often motionless than controls (13.49 ± 4.57 vs 4.76 ± 2.11%, P = 0.05). Disturbed quail ate a greater cumulative amount of mealworms (P = 0.05) or ate red maggots with a shorter latency compared to controls (P < 0.05 for the 2nd and 3rd red maggots, on the 2nd test). Concerning the general activity, disturbed males only showed less stereotypic behaviour than control ones after 14 days with URNS (1.4 ± 0.4 vs 4.9 ± 1.2% respectively, P = 0.03), but this difference disappeared after 34 days with URNS (P > 0.1). More importantly, stereotypic behaviours represented less than 5% of the time budget of both groups. URNS had however no effect on tonic immobility, general activity and corticosterone concentrations. This study demonstrated that URNS induced an increase of male quail's emotional reactivity to a human (when tested for the 1st time), to a novel object and when restrained in a crush cage. URNS also altered male quail's feeding behaviour. Disturbed quail were more interested by the novel foods than control quail presumably because they considered them as positive rewards after repeated exposures and they used them as a way to compensate their negative emotional state. All in all, our results demonstrated that URNS induced a chronic stress state in male quail that can have negative consequences on their welfare.

Ethological research applied to farm animals : reconciling animal welfare and production This paper illustrates the integrative feature of ethology with two complementary approaches in farm animals, one aiming at production targets and the other addressing concerns about animal welfare. The first approach is based on social ethology. As farm animals belong to gregarious species, their individual behaviour is strongly shaped by the group. Social organisation is based on both stable dominance relationships that ensure the resolution of many conflicts inherent to promiscuity among animals, and affinity relationships that ensure group cohesion and increase social tolerance in conflict situations. A better understanding of the behavioural mechanisms involved in the construction of social relationships, allows to providing animal husbandry practices that take into account the social needs of animals, highlights the importance of affinity relationships to alleviate problems due to social stress and ensures social support for a better adaptation. The second approach relies on cognitive ethology. While it is now widely accepted that animals are sentient beings capable of feeling emotions, understanding their emotional experience remains a tricky issue. The analysis of the emotion -cognition relationships allows to assess emotional experiences in animals through a scientific approach and to open new perspectives for a better understanding animal welfare. Inspired by theories in cognitive psychology, we have developed a framework to facilitate the study of emotions in animals from their cognitive abilities. Emotion depends on how the animal evaluates the eliciting situation based on a limited numbers of checks : the relevance of the situation (i. e. suddenness, familiarity, predictability and pleasantness), the implications of the situation for the animal, including how far the situation is consistent with its own expectations, and the coping potential of the animal, including the control offered by the situation and its ability to react. The outcomes of this limited number of evaluative checks determine the negative or positive nature of the emotion. Furthermore, recent works have shown that an emotion transiently influences the way the animal evaluates its situation and that the accumulation of emotions can long-lasting influence the evaluation processes. Innovative husbandry practices may then be recommended to seek positive experiences of animals and so genuinely improve their level welfare., Afin d’illustrer le caractère intégratif de l’éthologie, nous rapportons deux approches complémentaires appliquées aux animaux de ferme, l’une répondant à des objectifs de production, l’autre plus fondamentale répondant à une attente en matière de bien-être animal. La première concerne l’éthologie sociale. Les animaux de ferme appartenant tous à des espèces grégaires, leurs comportements individuels sont fortement façonnés par le groupe. L’organisation sociale est basée à la fois sur des relations stables de dominance-subordination qui assurent la résolution de nombreux conflits inhérents à la promiscuité entre les animaux, et sur des relations d’affinité qui assurent la cohésion du groupe et accroissent la tolérance entre les animaux dans les situations de conflit. Une meilleure connaissance des mécanismes régulant les relations sociales permet de proposer des systèmes de conduite d’élevage plus respectueux des besoins sociaux des animaux et de promouvoir des pratiques qui préservent les liens d’affinité garants d’une meilleure adaptation de l’animal aux conditions de vie ultérieures. La seconde approche concerne l’éthologie cognitive. S’il est maintenant admis que les animaux sont des êtres sensibles capables de ressentir des émotions, la compréhension de leur expérience émotionnelle reste délicate. L’étude des relations entre émotions et cognition ouvre de nouvelles perspectives visant à mieux comprendre les conditions du bien-être des animaux. S’inspirant de théories en psychologie cognitive, un cadre conceptuel a été développé pour étudier les émotions chez les animaux de ferme à partir de processus d’évaluation. L’émotion dépend ainsi de la manière dont l’animal évalue la situation à partir du caractère soudain, connu, agréable et prévisible de la situation, de la correspondance ou non de la situation par rapport à ses propres attentes, et de sa possibilité ou non de contrôler la situation. De nouveaux travaux montrent que ces processus d’évaluation sont en retour influencés par une émotion et que l’accumulation d’émotions peut influencer durablement l’évaluation. Sur la base de ces travaux, des pratiques d’élevage innovantes peuvent être proposées non seulement pour réduire les états de stress des animaux mais surtout pour solliciter chez eux des émotions positives garant d’un véritable mieux-être., Boissy Alain. Recherche en éthologie appliquée aux animaux de ferme: concilier bien-être animal et production. In: Bulletin de l'Académie Vétérinaire de France tome 165 n°2, 2012. Séance thématique: Le bon usage des antibiotiques. pp. 137-148.

The present study evaluated whether feed deprivation can increase reactivity to stressful events, such as those that can occur at slaughter. Therefore, effects of 30 h of feed deprivation on behavior, including reactions to psychological stressors, and physiological status in cattle were determined. Sixteen Holstein cows (Exp. 1) and 32 Holstein heifers (Exp. 2) were either fed (FE) or 30-h feed deprived (FD). Throughout the first day of feed deprivation and during evening feed distribution to control animals, FD heifers and cows were more active than controls (P < 0.05). In Exp. 1, during a feeding test, in response to a sudden air blast arising from the bucket from which the cow was feeding, FD cows showed a longer latency to return to feed (P = 0.0002), spent less time in the bucket air blast zone (P = 0.008) and less time motionless (P = 0.03), and tended to withdraw over a longer distance (P = 0.07) than FE cows. In Exp. 2, during a reactivity test, FD heifers spent more (P = 0.0001) time motionless in response to social isolation than FE heifers. In Exp. 2, one-half of the FE and FD heifers were subjected to an additional physical and psychological stressor just before the reactivity test by driving them for 5 min through a labyrinth. Within heifers subjected to the additional stressor, FD heifers were less accepting of being detained (P = 0.05) and stroked (P = 0.003) by a familiar stockperson in a corner of the test arena. Compared with FE animals, FD heifers and FD cows had greater plasma cortisol concentrations (P < 0.05). Feed-deprived cows also had reduced β-hydroxybutyrate concentrations (P = 0.02) compared with FE cows. Thus, in cattle, FD influenced some of the classical indicators of energy metabolism and exacerbated reactivity to sudden events. In addition, when additional stressors were applied, FD cattle were more reluctant to accept handling. Results indicate that a multifactorial origin of stressors during the slaughter period may synergistically increase psychological stress of cattle.

International audience; The way animals perceive partners, including humans, is yet relatively unknown. Research has shown that humans can provide social support or act as social substitute for domestic animals. Nonetheless, studies investigating the perception of humans by domestic animals in their social environment, i.e. alongside conspecifics, have been scarce. We investigated if humans could modulate lambs’ separation distress in a social environment paradigm. Artificially suckled lambs were familiarized to humans using positive tactile contacts from birth. A “familiar” and a “known” human had extensive and minimal contact with the lambs respectively. At four weeks of age, lambs were tested either individually or in a group of penmates. The test was a paradigm of “union-separation-reunion” (1½ min each) by visually isolating the individual lamb from the group during separation. We used a factorial design by constituting groups of two sizes, ‘two’ vs. ‘three’, with or without a human included. Therefore, the group was either: “1 lamb + 1 human” or “2 lambs” (for group sizes of two), “2 lambs + 1 human” or “3 lambs” (for group sizes of three). Lambs showed the strongest distress behaviours when isolated and, to a lesser extent, when they had only one partner (P < 0.001). On the other hand, group sizes of three partners and above (during reunion phases) nearly suppressed their vocalisations during social separation (P < 0.001). Our results confirmed the high distress lambs experienced when alone, as well as the importance of being in a group of three, possibly the minimum group size to reduce separation distress. Furthermore, during separation, the groups of three partners did not differ in the amount of vocalisations, whether this group was composed of two lambs with a human or three lambs together (P = 0.68), both vocalising much less than a group of only two lambs (P < 0.001). This supports the idea that, in our husbandry conditions, the human provided social support and could have played a role of social substitute during social separation. However, a lamb placed alone with a human vocalised much more than two lambs together (P < 0.001). Hence, the effectiveness of the human at providing social support was modulated by the social environment, i.e. by requiring a minimal group size in which the human was included. During social separation, a human who previously interacted positively with the lamb can act as a social substitute in presence of a few other conspecifics.

Stray voltage (usually