Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T01:21:25.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Diet selection and animal state: an integrative framework

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2007

Ilias Kyriazakis ,
Bert J. Tolkamp  and
Gerry Emmans
Ilias Kyriazakis*
Affiliation:
Animal Biology Division, Scottish Agricultural College, King's Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK
Bert J. Tolkamp
Affiliation:
Animal Biology Division, Scottish Agricultural College, King's Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK
Gerry Emmans
Affiliation:
Animal Biology Division, Scottish Agricultural College, King's Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK
*
*Corresponding Author: Dr Ilias Kyriazakis, fax +44 (0)131 535 3121, email [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In the present paper we deal with the problems of explaining and predicting diet selection of animals under controlled conditions, i.e. conditions that can be described and in which any influences of the environment can be either controlled or at least monitored. Diet selection is considered within an integrative framework of feeding behaviour that views both food intake and diet selection as an outcome of the animal's internal state and knowledge of the feeding environment. Three questions that arise from the framework are considered: (1) how do animals learn about foods available to them as a choice? (2) what changes in internal state affect diet selection? (3) how much time is needed for a change in the animal's internal state to be detected and for it to react to this change through a modification of its diet selection? It is proposed that animals have developed behavioural mechanisms that allow them to recognize foods on the basis of their nutritional as well as other properties. The rate at which animals learn about foods depends largely on the extent of the animal's deficiency and on the extent of the post-ingestive consequences induced by the foods. There is little evidence that animals modify their diet selection in response to short-term systemic fluctuation of their internal environment. On the other hand, long-term changes in the internal state of the animal lead to consequent long-term changes in diet selection. The time needed for a change in diet selection to be observed depends on the deviation created in the animal's internal state, either as a result of a physiological change or as a consequence of feeding. Thus, a more appropriate question to consider is not 'what time period matters to the animal?' but 'how much change or deviation in the internal state is the animal prepared to accept?'

Keywords

Internal stateDiet selectionFeeding behaviourLearning
Type
Symposium on ‘Social and environmental influences on diet choice’
Information
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , November 1999 , pp. 765 - 772
Copyright
The Nutrition Society

References

Arsenos, G & Kyriazakis, I (1999) The continuum between preferences and aversions for flavoured foods in sheep conditioned with administration of casein doses. Animal Science 68, 605–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belovsky, GE & Schmitz, OJ (1994) Plant defences and optimal foraging by mammalian herbivores. Journal of Mammalogy 75, 816–832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blair-West, JR, Denton, DA, McKinley, MJ, Rodden, BG, Ramshaw, EH & Wark, JD (1992) Behavioural and tissue responses to severe phosphorus depletion in cattle. American Journal of Physiology 263, R656–R663.Google Scholar
Bradford, MMV & Gous, RM (1991) The response of growing pigs to a choice of diets differing in protein content. Animal Production 52, 185–192.Google Scholar
Capaldi, ED, Sheffer, J & Owens, J (1991) Food deprivation and conditioned flavor preferences based on sweetened and unsweetened foods. Animal Learning and Behavior 19, 361–368.Google Scholar
Classen, HL & Scott, TA (1982) Self-selection of calcium during the rearing and early laying periods of White Leghorn pullets. Poultry Science 61, 2065–2074.Google Scholar
Collier, MJ & Johnson, DF (1990) The time window of feeding. Physiology and Behavior 48, 771–777.Google Scholar
Cooper, SDB, Kyriazakis, I & Oldham, JD (1994) The effect of late pregnancy on the diet selection made by ewes. Livestock Production Science 40, 263–275.Google Scholar
de Jong, A (1981) Short- and long-term effects of eating on blood composition in free-feeding goats. Journal of Agricultural Science, Cambridge 96, 657–668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denton, DA (1982) The Hunger for Salt – An Anthropological, Physiological and Medical Analysis. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Deutsch, JA, Moore, BO & Heinrichs, SC (1989) Unlearned specific appetite for protein. Physiology and Behavior 46, 619–624.Google Scholar
Emmans, GC (1991) Diet selection by animals: theory and experimental design. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 50, 59–64.Google Scholar
Forbes, JM & Kyriazakis, I (1995) Food preferences in farm animals: why don't they always choose wisely? Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 55, 429–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, BO (1979) Appetites for specific nutrients. In Food Intake Regulation in Poultry. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Poultry Science Symposium, pp. 141–169 [Boorman, KN and Freeman, BM], editors. Edinburgh: British Poultry Science Ltd.Google Scholar
Hutchings, MR, Kyriazakis, I, Gordon, IJ & Jackson, F (1999) Trade-offs between nutrient intake and faecal avoidance in herbivore foraging decisions: the effect of animal parasitic status, level of feeding motivation and sward nitrogen content. Journal of Animal Ecology 68, 310–323.Google Scholar
James, SM & Kyriazakis, I (1999) The effect of consumption of foods that differ in energy density and/or sodium bicarbonate supplementation on subsequent diet selection in sheep. Proceedings of the 115th Meeting of the British Society of Animal Science, p. 114. Edinburgh: British Society of Animal Science.Google Scholar
Kendrick, KM (1992) Cognition. In Farm Animals and the Environment, pp. 209–231 [Phillips, C and Piggins, D, editors. Oxford: CAB International.Google Scholar
Krebs, JR & McCleery, H (1984) Optimisation in behavioural ecology. In Behavioural Ecology – An Evolutionary Approach, 2nd ed. [JR, Krebs and NB, Davies, editors]. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kyriazakis, I (1997) The nutritional choice of farm animals: to eat or what to eat? In Animal Choices, pp. 55–65 [JM, Forbes, TLJ, Lawrence, RG, Rodway and MA, Varley, editors]. Edinburgh: British Society of Animal Science.Google Scholar
Kyriazakis, I, Anderson, DH & Duncan, AJ (1998) Conditioned food aversions in sheep: the relationship between the dose rate of a secondary plant compound and the acquisition and persistence of aversions. British Journal of Nutrition 79, 55–62.Google Scholar
Kyriazakis, I & Emmans, GC (1991) Diet selection in pigs: choices made by growing pigs following a period of underfeeding with protein. Animal Production 52, 337–346.Google Scholar
Kyriazakis, I & Emmans, GC (1992) The selection of a diet by growing pigs given choices between feeds different in their contents of protein and rapeseed meal. Appetite 19, 121–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kyriazakis, I, Emmans, GC & Taylor, AJ (1993) A note on the diets selected by boars given a choice between two foods of different protein concentrations from 44 to 103 kg liveweights. Animal Production 54, 151–154.Google Scholar
Kyriazakis, I & Oldham, JD (1993) Diet selection in sheep: the ability of growing lambs to select a diet that meets their crude protein requirements. British Journal of Nutrition 69, 617–629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kyriazakis, I, Oldham, JD, Coop, RL & Jackson, F (1994) The effect of subclinical intestinal nematode infection on the diet selection of growing sheep. British Journal of Nutrition 72, 665–677.Google Scholar
Nielsen, BL (1999) On the interpretation of feeding behaviour measures and the use of feeding rate as an indicator of social constraint. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 63, 79–91.Google Scholar
Provenza, FD, Villalba, JJ, Cheney, CD & Werner, SJ (1998) Selforganization of foraging behaviour: from simplicity to complexity without goals. Nutrition Research Reviews 11, 199–222.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ralphs, MH & Provenza, FD (1999) Social facilitation and learned food aversion. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 58, 813–820.Google Scholar
Shariatmadari, F & Forbes, JM (1992) Feeding behaviour of broiler chickens offered a choice of high- and low-protein foods. Animal Production 54, 470 Abstr.Google Scholar
Siegel, PB (1993) Behaviour-genetic analyses and poultry husbandry. Poultry Science 72, 1–6.Google Scholar
Simpson, SJ & Ludlow, AR (1986) Why locusts start to feed, a comparison of causal factors. Animal Behaviour 34, 480–496.Google Scholar
Taylor St, CS (1980a) Genetic size-scaling rules in animal growth. Animal Production 30, 161–165.Google Scholar
Taylor St, CS (1980b) Genetic size-scaling rules in animal growth. Animal Production 30, 167–175.Google Scholar
Tolkamp, BJ, Dewhurst, RJ, Friggens, NC, Kyriazakis, I, Veerkamp, RE & Oldham, JD (1998a) Diet choice in dairy cows. I. Selection for feed protein content during the first half of lactation. Journal of Dairy Science 81, 2557–2669.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tolkamp, BJ & Ketelaars, JJMH (1992) Toward a new theory of feed intake regulation in ruminants. 2. Costs and benefits of feed consumption: an optimisation approach. Livestock Production Science 30, 297–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tolkamp, BJ & Kyriazakis, I (1997) Measuring diet selection in dairy cows: effect of training on choice of dietary protein level. Animal Science 62, 197–207.Google Scholar
Tolkamp, BJ, Kyriazakis, I, Oldham, JD, Lewis, M, Dewhurst, RJ & Newbold, JR (1998b) Diet choice in dairy cows. II. Selection for metabolisable or for ruminally degradable protein? Journal of Dairy Science 81, 2670–2680.Google Scholar