羊的选择采食动机强度研究

本研究用ｏｐｅｒａｎｔ方法测量羊对高、低蛋白饲料的选择采食动机强度。同时供给试羊含高、低蛋白的两种饲料供其选择。其中一种饲料试羊只有通过碰撞电钮（劳动）才能获得，另一种饲料试羊可自由获得。当设定的劳动强度显著降低试羊采食量时，两种饲料互换位置。结果表明，试羊能够付出较大的“劳动”去获取其喜爱的饲料，而且所付出的努力与自由选择采食这两种饲料条件下对某饲料偏爱的程度成正相关。

An Operant Study on the Motivation ofFood Selection in Sheep

Operant methods were used in this study to measure how hard sheep wouldword to sustain their selection between feeds. One feed was made avatlable subject towork by pressing a button, while the other was freely available at the same time.Theresults of the experiment clearly showed that sheep were willing to make considerablwefforts to sustain their selection between the two olifferent feeds on offer and the degreeof effort shown appeared to be related to the preference during free choice feeding.