In-cage sandbox as a ground substitute for farmed blue foxes (<i>Alopex lagopus</i>): Effects on digging activity and welfare
Bibliographic record
Abstract
A study on the behavioural and welfare effects of in-cage sandboxes was carried out on juvenile farm-bred blue foxes (Alopex lagopus) with special reference to digging behaviours and time spent on sand substrate. Twelve juvenile male blue foxes were used in each of two experimental groups: (1) a test group and (2) a control group. Animals were raised singly in cages measuring 120 cm long × 105 cm wide × 70 cm high, from weaning in July to pelting in December. All experimental animals were housed conventionally but cages of the test group contained in-cage sandboxes (80 cm long × 40 cm wide × 14 cm high). Various physiological, behavioural, health and production related variables were measured during the study. Final body weights of test animals were significantly (P = 0.05) lower than controls. Occurrence of endoparasites (Toxascaris leonina, Isospora sp.) did not substantially differ between groups. Open field activity was greater (P = 0.02) and latency to touch novel objects shorter (P = 0.02) in the test group compared with the control. Cortisol-creatinine ratio, incidence of stereotypes, size of adrenals or other organs, blood screen and fur quality parameters were not significantly different. Sandbox hygiene deteriorated rapidly during the experimental period. Fur coats of test animals were dirtier than those of controls at pelting. Claw length of test animals was significantly shorter (front foot; P < 0.005, back foot, P < 0.001) than in controls only in October. Altogether nine different sandbox behaviours were observed in the test foxes. Digging was the fifth most common behavior, comprising 5.8% of total sandbox use. Amount of time spent in the sandbox peaked in July, averaging 117 min/24 h, and declined towards winter. The most common sandbox behaviours observed were walking (24.3% of total time), sitting (22.0%) and resting (17.5%). Results indicated low motivation to use in-cage sandboxes as a digging substrate. On the other hand, the presence of in-cage sandboxes may provide opportunities for foxes to engage in other species-specific activities and/or seek sensory comfort through contact with the sand. The effects of in-cage sandboxes on animal welfare need further study. Key words: Alopex lagopus, sand floor, digging, motivation, welfare, fur farming
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".