Refining a novel on-farm attention bias test to measure anxious states in sheep (AEC14/28)

Animal welfare is an increasingly important aspect of livestock production systems and there is a need to develop tests that can identify sheep that are more resilient and cope better with our production systems. This study further validated and refined a novel behavioural test for sheep as a measure of anxious states. The original test method took 3 minutes per animal and required some prior training. One objective of this project was to refine the test, to take less than 3 minutes per animal and to remove the need for prior training, so that it could be applied on-farm to larger numbers of animals. Another objective of the study was to pharmacologically validate the test as a measure of anxious states, using the drugs diazepam and m-Chlorophenylpiperazine to reduce and induce anxious states respectively prior to testing. \nLineage: Details of the methods used to produce this data have been published and can be found at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0190404 (see methods for Experiment 1)

动物福利是畜牧生产系统中愈发重要的组成部分，当前亟需开发可甄别出对生产系统适应性更强、应激应对能力更优的绵羊的检测方法。本研究针对一款用于评估绵羊焦虑状态的新型行为学检测方法，开展了进一步验证与优化工作。原始检测方案单只动物耗时3分钟，且需预先开展训练。本项目的目标之一即为优化该检测流程，使其单只动物检测时长缩短至3分钟以内，同时取消预先训练的要求，以便能够在农场场景中应用于更大规模的动物群体。本研究的另一目标是通过药理学手段验证该检测方法作为焦虑状态评估指标的有效性：分别使用地西泮（diazepam）与间氯苯哌嗪（m-Chlorophenylpiperazine）在检测前缓解与诱发绵羊的焦虑状态。
数据集溯源：本数据集所采用的实验方法细节已正式发表，可通过链接https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0190404查阅（详见实验1的方法部分）。