A novel flexible method to split feeding behaviour into bouts |
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| Authors: | Jennifer A Howie Bert J Tolkamp Santiago Avendaño Ilias Kyriazakis |
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| Institution: | 1. SAC, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JG, UK;2. Aviagen Ltd., Newbridge, Midlothian EH28 8SZ, UK;3. Veterinary Faculty, University of Thessaly, PO Box 199, 43100 Karditsa, Greece;1. Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University, Tjele DK-8830, Denmark;2. Hermitage Genetics, Kilkenny, Ireland;1. Australian Animal Health Laboratory, CSIRO Animal, Food and Health Sciences, Geelong, Victoria 3220, Australia;2. CSIRO Animal, Food and Health Sciences, St. Lucia, Queensland 4067, Australia;3. South Australian Research and Development Institute, Pig and Poultry Production Institute, Roseworthy, South Australia 5371, Australia;4. Poultry Cooperative Research Centre, University of New England Armidale, New South Wales 2315, Australia;5. The University of Adelaide, School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Roseworthy, South Australia 5371, Australia;6. Centre for Biotechnology, Chemistry and Systems Biology, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria 3216, Australia;7. Central Queensland University, Higher Education Division, Rockhampton, Queensland 4702, Australia;8. ARC Centre of Excellence in Structural and Functional Microbial Genomics, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia;2. Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Dreijenplein 10, 6703 HB Wageningen, The Netherlands;2. College of Animal Science and Technology, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin 150030, People''s Republic of China;3. College of Animal Science, Inner Mongolian Agriculture University, Hohhot 010018, People''s Republic of China;1. College of Veterinary Medicine and College of Animal Science, Jilin University, Changchun, 130062, China;2. College of Animal Science and Technology, Changchun Sci-Tech University, Shuangyang, Jilin Province, 130600, China;2. State Key Laboratory Breeding Base for Zhejiang Sustainable Pest and Disease Control, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310021, China;3. Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Institute, Jinhua Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Jinhua, 321017, China;4. Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Institute, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310021, China |
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| Abstract: | Before meal patterns can be analysed properly, a biologically relevant meal criterion must be determined in order to group short-term feeding behaviour into meals. Existing methodologies are based on modelling of the frequency distributions of intervals between feeding events but these methods cannot be used if the proper distributions cannot be clearly identified. For such cases we developed two new methods – (1) based on the analysis of the distribution of between-meal interval lengths only and (2) based on the analysis of changes in the probability of animals starting to feed with time since the last feeding event. Both methods were developed using a data set of over 700,000 records of visits to feeders obtained with broilers (Gallus gallus) aged between 2 and 5 weeks. The two methods resulted in meal criteria estimates of 20.1 and 17.5 min, respectively, which, when applied to the data set, gave statistically significant but very small differences in meal characteristics. The new methods were tested against an independent cow (Bos taurus) data set and the resultant meal criteria compared with those predicted by an existing method. The two novel methods estimated meal criteria for cows at 27.9 and 35.5 min, compared with 28.9 min for the existing method. Again, these differences in meal criteria resulted in only very small differences in meal characteristics. Even though meal criteria were relatively similar for birds and cows, characteristics such as average daily number of meals (10.9 and 5.9), meal size (12.5 g and 7.4 kg) and meal duration (7.7 and 31.4 min) were very different. The analyses show that, if the appropriate distributions of intervals cannot be identified, meal criteria can still be estimated for species as diverse as mature cows and young birds by the novel methodologies developed here. |
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