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Ethogram Discussion

Submitted by rdigregorio on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 16:14

There is plenty of support in the results showing a difference in behavior based on who the foal is in contact with, or physically close to. Foals spend a considerable amount of their time displaying feeding behaviors and grooming behaviors (Figure 1). These two types of behaviors are seen very often in all contexts: alone, with mother, and with foal. However, when comparing these two behavioral types between foals alone and foals with other foals, it is clear that foals spend substantially more time feeding and grooming when they are alone, rather than with another foal (Figure 1). It can be hypothesized too, that foals will perform more feeding behaviors when in the presence of the mother as well, because nursing will also play a role in the feeding category. The foals also spend much of their time doing observational displays, such as surveying, sniffing, rotating ears, and standing still. These behaviors are very common in all contexts but more specifically when they are alone (Figure 1). Out of the three categorized individual bouts scored the playful bout, the bucking bout, and the standing still bout, the standing still bout occurs most often when the foal was alone with a proportion of 0.05. The playful bout occurs slightly less at 0.02. The foals spent the least proportion of time in the bucking bout at 0.01 (Figure 1).

 

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