Version 1
: Received: 6 June 2024 / Approved: 6 June 2024 / Online: 7 June 2024 (08:04:07 CEST)
How to cite:
Zhang, Q.-X.; Tao, Y.; Zhu, Y.-T.; Li, H.; Zhu, Y. Contrafreeloading and Its Influencing Factors in Budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulates): Implications for Their Feeding and Welfare. Preprints2024, 2024060432. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.0432.v1
Zhang, Q.-X.; Tao, Y.; Zhu, Y.-T.; Li, H.; Zhu, Y. Contrafreeloading and Its Influencing Factors in Budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulates): Implications for Their Feeding and Welfare. Preprints 2024, 2024060432. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.0432.v1
Zhang, Q.-X.; Tao, Y.; Zhu, Y.-T.; Li, H.; Zhu, Y. Contrafreeloading and Its Influencing Factors in Budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulates): Implications for Their Feeding and Welfare. Preprints2024, 2024060432. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.0432.v1
APA Style
Zhang, Q. X., Tao, Y., Zhu, Y. T., Li, H., & Zhu, Y. (2024). Contrafreeloading and Its Influencing Factors in Budgerigars (<em>Melopsittacus undulates</em>): Implications for Their Feeding and Welfare. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.0432.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Zhang, Q., Hui Li and Yong Zhu. 2024 "Contrafreeloading and Its Influencing Factors in Budgerigars (<em>Melopsittacus undulates</em>): Implications for Their Feeding and Welfare" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202406.0432.v1
Abstract
Contrafreeloading (CFL) refers to animals' tendency to prefer obtaining food through effort rather than free access to food. Researchers have proposed various hypotheses to explain this intriguing phenomenon, but few studies have comprehensively analyzed its influencing factors. In this study, we observed the choice of alternative food containers in budgerigars to investigate their CFL tendencies and the effects of pre-training, food deprivation, and effort required on the CFL levels. The results show that, like most captive animals, budgerigars without food deprivation tend to choose challenging food containers. Additionally, the study finds that pre-trained budgerigars prefer to choose highly challenging food containers, while food-deprived budgerigars tend to choose Easy food containers. Moreover, budgerigars showed more selection time proportion on moderate challenging than high challenging food containers. In conclusion, budgerigars exhibit CFL tendencies, and pre-training enhances their CFL levels, while high challenge and deprivation of food decrease their contrafreeloading level. Studying animal contrafreeloading can help understand why animals choose to expend effort to obtain food rather than accessing it for free, and it also has implications for setting feeding environments to enhance the animal welfare of captive and domesticated animals.
Biology and Life Sciences, Animal Science, Veterinary Science and Zoology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
