The Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing is an academic center affiliated with the Division of Toxicological Sciences in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

 

Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

Research Grants 2007-2008

Operant conditioning of sheep and goats

Lara Weaver, DVM
Tufts University

In the first year of this project, we aim to devise and optimize a program of positive reinforcement training (PRT) in sheep that can be accomplished in 14 days or less by an individual with little or no previous animal training experience. Once an effective method of training has been devised, we will design and perform a study testing the hypothesis that sheep that have undergone PRT will exhibit lower indices of stress (behavioral and physiological) compared to sheep that are untrained, when both groups are subjected to identical procedures. During this first year, video clips and other relevant training materials will be collected for use in developing a training module designed to rapidly train laboratory animal personnel in the technique of PRT in sheep. It will likely take longer than 1 year to finish the training module and this would not be expected to be completed within the first year of this project.

Project summary: The goal of this study is to develop a relatively rapid and reproducible method of training sheep and/or goats to better acclimate them to procedures commonly performed in a research setting. Positive reinforcement will be used to train the sheep or goats to accept a halter and walk on a lead; stand in a sheep blocking stand; undergo physical examination including body condition scoring, rectal temperature collection, hoof examination and trimming; and clipping of the hair coat as needed; and undergo blood, urine and feces collection with minimal restraint. It is hoped that by acclimating sheep and/or goats to these commonly performed procedures, they will experience less stress in the research setting.  Ultimately the goal of this work is to develop a training method that could be incorporated at other research facilities thus benefiting sheep and goats in a variety of research settings.