Date of Award

4-19-2024

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Department

Agriculture

First Advisor

Katherine Koudele

Second Advisor

Karl Bailey

Abstract

Contrafreeloading (CFL) is the willingness of an animal to work for food. This study continues the 2022 pilot study, in which thirteen female goats from the Andrews University Sustainable Agriculture Department were tested to see if there was any correlation between age and contrafreeload in goats, and additionally investigates whether or not there is any correlation between type of rearing and contrafreeloading behavior in female goats. The pilot study found no direct correlation between age and contrafreeloading, therefore early life feeding techniques were also considered for this study.

Eighteen female goats representing three different age groups and three types of rearing were put in a testing area containing a bin of freely-available hay and a contrafreeloading apparatus which would require work to access the hay. The two food sources were equidistant from each other and from the starting point for each goat for every trial. Each goat was tested individually for a five-minute period to see whether or not they exhibited contrafreeloading. Data was collected once a week over four weeks and the positioning of the freely available hay and apparatus were swapped between weeks 2 and 3 to address spatial learning. The results show that type of rearing does make a difference in levels of contrafreeloading, with bottle-raised goats being the most likely to contrafreeload even after changes are made in the environment.

Subject Area

Goats--Feeding and feeds; Guernsey cattle

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