Avoidance of tape-recorded milking facility noise by dairy heifers in a Y maze choice task

Abstract

The effect of noise pre-recorded from a commercial milking facility on the choice behaviour of dairy heifers in a Y maze was examined. Sixteen animals were individually trained to associate noise onset with a particular maze arm and no noise (quiet) with the other maze arm. After a maze familiarisation period, each heifer was exposed to a mixture of training trials, where access to only one maze arm was made available, and choice trials, where both maze arms were available. In order to reduce possible interference from animals' original side preferences or response patterns under two-alternative choice situations, training and choice trials were interspersed and the noise stimulus was presen..