ASSESSMENT OF FEAR REACTIONS IN DOMESTIC SHEEP, AND INFLUENCE OF BREED AND REARING CONDITIONS

The aim of this study was: (1) to design a series of tests to measure fear reactions of domestic sheep placed in different fear-inducing situations; (2) to interpret the observed behaviour in terms of the presence or absence of fear; (3) to test the hypothesis that fear is a unitary phenomenon; (4) to investigate the effects of breed and rearing conditions before weaning as possible factors causing variation in fear reactions. Four tests, based on thc presence of stimuli classically reported to induce fear, were designed to measure fear reactions. They involved: (1) a surprise effect; (2) the presence of a human, (3) the presence of a novel object; (4) an unfamiliar environment (open-field test). In each of these tests food was present, so a conflict between food-motivation and fear arose. Eighty-eight sheep were individually submitted to the first three tests on subsequent afternoons having been exposed to the control situation (same surroundings without the fear-inducing stimulus) each morning. The open-field test was conducted on the fifth day. The behaviour of sheep was observed when in control or frightening situations. The results indicate that high values for the following parameters reflect the expression of fear: latency to enter the test-room, latency to feeding, time spent away from the stimulus, immobilization, high-pitch bleats, defecation, locomotory activity (number of squares entered), attempts to escape, trotting, glances at the stimulus and latency to sniff the stimulus. On the other hand high values for feeding time, latency to bleat for the first time, sniffings of the trough and sniffings of the stimulus are expressions of a low level or an absence of fear. The correlations between measurements of fear from different fear-inducing situations suggest that fear is a unitary phenomenon. Fear reactions were influenced by; (a) breed-Romanov sheep were more fearful than Ile-de-France sheep; (b) rearing conditions before weaning-for Romanov but not Ile-de-France sheep, dam-reared animals were more fearful than artificially reared ones.