Socially-Mediated Food Transmition in Ovine: Hierarchical-Conditioning by Age as a Diet-Managing Tool in Unrelated Ruminants During Foraging

Conditioning of food consumption induced by Lithium Chloride (LiCl) treatment has been reported in different animal species. In ruminants, older animals are capable of transferring selective food aversion to the youngers. The objetive of this study was to determine whether food aversion in adult sheep induced by LiCl can be transmitted to non-relative lambs. Twelve animals, four adult ewes and eight lambs were used. Three ewes were conditioned with LiCl 200 mg/kg BW (orally) to avoid concentrate consumption, while the other one acted as a control. Food consumption of lambs was recorded prior to the trial, to define pre-conditioned basal consumption. After that, animals were assigned to four groups of one sheep and two lambs each, whose food consumption was recorded for a 20-day period in lairage. Concentrate consumption decreased significantly in those lambs that were grouped with conditioned ewes (p < .01). These results suggest that hierarchical conditioning in sheep would be a useful tool to control diet and consumption of potentially harmful food like toxic plants.