Environmental enrichment reduces behavioural alterations induced by chronic stress in Japanese quail

Abstract

Animals perceiving repeated aversive events can become chronically stressed. Chronic activation of the hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis can have deleterious consequences on physiological parameters (e.g. BW, blood chemistry) and behaviour (e.g. emotional reactivity, stereotypies, cognition). Environmental enrichment (EE) can be a mean to reduce animal stress and to improve welfare. The aim of this study was first, to assess the effects of EE in battery cages on the behaviour of young Japanese quail and second, to evaluate the impact of EE on quail exposed to chronic stress. The experiment involved quail housed in EE cages and submitted or not to a chronic stress procedure (CSP) (EE cages, control quail: n = 16, CSP quail: n = 14) and quail housed in standard cages and exposed or not to the CSP (standard non-EE cages, control quail: n = 12, CSP quail: n = 16). Our procedure consisted of repeated aversive events (e.g. ventilators, delaying access to food, physical restraint, noise) presented two to five times per 24 h, randomly, for 15 days. During CSP, EE improved quail's welfare as their stereotypic pacing decreased and they rested more. CSP decreased exploration in all quail. After the end of CSP, quail presented increased emotional reactivity in emergence test. However, the effect of EE varied with test. Finally, chronic stress effects on comfort behaviours in the emergence test were alleviated by EE. These results indicate that EE can alleviate some aspects of behavioural alterations induced by CSP.

The effects of environmental enrichment objects on behaviors ofJapanese quails at different cage stocking densities

“…But since both applications took place within the same statistical group, the effect of applications has become controversial. Similarly, the results are in accordance with Laurence et al, (2015), it was reported that EE affected the activities of the quails. It was reported that EE, which was applied on Beijing ducks, caused a reduction in undesired behaviors comparing to ones, on which EE wasn't applied (Colton and Fraley, 2014), and might reduce conspecific pecking behavior at laying hens, thus weakening the injuries (Daigle et al, 2014), and also EE, created using straw bales, had potential necessary to increase welfare of animals (Bailie and O'Connell, 2015).…”

“…But the primary goal of environmental enrichment is to prevent abnormal behaviors of animals (Poggiagliolmia et al, 2011). The purpose of environmental enrichment (EE) is reduce the stress of animals and increase the welfare level of those (Laurence et al, 2015). EE not only improve locomotor activity by supporting it, but also can be expected to decrease the damages resulted from aggression of the animals, through these applications (Letzguß and Bessei, 2009).…”

Effects of voluntary exercise on apoptosis and cortisol after chronic restraint stress in mice

“…It has been reported that repeated and stressful situation can cause chronic stress in animals and lead to hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis change 1 . In addition, short-term stress can be used as a starting point to determine various hormonal changes in animals 2 .…”

Training level reveals a dynamic dialogue between stress and memory systems in birds

“…To improve the unpredictability of the stressor delivery and decrease habituation to the stress procedure, each stressor occurred at unpredictable times each day during both night and day. The CUS procedure has been fully described and was shown to induce a state of chronic stress in quail [15,[26][27][28][29][30]. Briefly, some stressors were delivered directly in the home cage of the quail: confinement of the bird in the corner of its home cage for 30min, food frustration by placing transparent devices on the feeder just before light on for 30min, soft home cage shaking (2×15 min interspaced by 15 min), unexpected sounds (100 dB) composed of different sounds having or not biological signification for quail.…”