Effects of communal rearing and group size on breeding rabbits’ post-grouping behaviour and its relation to ano-genital distance

•Rearing with non-littermates did not reduce adult agonistic behaviour post-grouping.•Larger groups tended to show more post-grouping offensive agonistic behaviour.•Ano-genital distance at birth was associated with adult agonistic behaviour. Group housing is becoming the standard for many farm anima...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied animal behaviour science 2016-09, Vol.182, p.53-60
Main Authors: Buijs, Stephanie, Vangeyte, Jürgen, Tuyttens, Frank A.M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agonistic behaviour
Early experience
Group housing
Masculinization
Pre-natal effects
Social behaviour
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Summary:•Rearing with non-littermates did not reduce adult agonistic behaviour post-grouping.•Larger groups tended to show more post-grouping offensive agonistic behaviour.•Ano-genital distance at birth was associated with adult agonistic behaviour. Group housing is becoming the standard for many farm animal species, as it is seen as a more welfare friendly way of keeping gregarious animals. Aggression between female breeding rabbits currently obstructs the implementation of group housing for this species. Lack of social experience during the rearing period may be one reason why breeding rabbits can act (excessively) aggressive when grouped as adults. To study this, we either reared breeding rabbits with their same-litter siblings and mother only (“litter-only”) or reared four litters and their mothers together from 18days of life on (“communal rearing”). The litter-only rabbits were born from individually housed mothers, whereas the communally reared rabbits were born from mothers that were group housed during the last three weeks of gestation. After their first kindling, female rabbits from both rearing strategies were housed in groups of four or eight individuals (at an equal space allowance per doe) to assess rearing and group size effects on post-grouping behaviour. Within both treatments we also measured the ano-genital distance at birth (an indicator of masculinization) and studied its relation to adult agonistic behaviour. Communal rearing and larger groups were expected to decrease agonistic behaviour and wounding, whereas rabbits with a longer ano-genital distance were expected to show more offensive agonistic behaviour. The first two hypotheses were not confirmed. Communally reared and litter-only rabbits did not differ significantly in the frequency of their offensive or defensive agonistic behaviour directly post-grouping, or in the severity of wounds sustained in the first three days after grouping (P>0.10). Communally reared rabbits sniffed/groomed their pen mates less often than litter-only rabbits (P
ISSN:0168-1591
1872-9045
DOI:10.1016/j.applanim.2016.06.005