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The effects of housing, feeding time and diet composition on the behaviour of the laboratory rabbit were examined. The animals were caged individually in single or double metal cages with perforated metal floors, metal walls, and bars in the front, or kept as a group in floor pens. The light/dark cycle was 12/12 h with light from 04:00 to 16:00 h and 30 min twilight. One experiment compared feeding equal energy levels of, a high energy diet (10.1 MJ/kg) and with a low energy diet (7.0 MJ/kg) at 08:00 h. The second experiment compared feeding the high energy diet at 08:00 h and at 14:00 h. In both studies the behaviour of the rabbits was recorded between 08:00 and 14:00 h and between 16:00 and 22:00 h. Feeding the animals at 14:00 h reduced abnormal behaviour during the dark period compared to feeding at 08:00 h, whereas no difference in behaviour could be detected between feeding a high-energy and a low-energy diet at 08:00 h. Animals in floor pens generally showed less abnormal behaviour than caged animals. The results indicate that the welfare for caged rabbits can be improved by feeding the animals in the afternoon rather than in the morning

Abnormal behaviour. --- Animal. --- Animals. --- Behaviour. --- Cage. --- Circadian-rhythms. --- Diet. --- Energy. --- Experiment. --- Feeding. --- Floor. --- Group. --- Housing. --- Kept. --- Laboratory rabbit. --- Laboratory rabbits,behaviour,housing,feeding time,abnormal behaviour,welfare. --- Laboratory. --- Level. --- Light. --- Oryctolagus-cuniculus. --- Pen. --- Rabbit. --- Rabbits. --- Time. --- Welfare.

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Prenatal stress (PS) can produce profound and long-lasting perturbations of individual adaptive capacities, which in turn can result in an increased proneness to behavioural disorders. Indeed, in PS rats there is evidence of impaired social play behaviour, disturbances in a variety of circadian rhythms, enhanced anxiety and increased hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis reactivity. This study was designed to experimentally investigate the degree of reversibility of PS-induced disturbances of social play and HPA reactivity by assessing the effect of the enrichment of the physical environment on PS rats during periadolescence. PS subjects showed a reduced expression of social play behaviour and a prolonged corticosterone secretion in response to restraint stress, but both these effects were markedly reversed following environmental enrichment. Interestingly, the enrichment procedure increased social behaviour but had no effect on corticosterone secretion in nonstressed animals, indicating a differential impact of the postnatal environment as a function of prenatal background. As a whole, results clearly indicate that rats prenatally exposed to stress can benefit during periadolescence from the modulatory effects of an enriched environment. Moreover, they confirm that PS may well represent a suitable animal model for the design and testing of new therapeutic strategies for behavioural disorders produced by early insults

Adolescence. --- Adult-rats. --- Animal model. --- Animal-model. --- Animal. --- Animals. --- Anxiety. --- Behaviour. --- Behavioural disorder. --- Circadian rhythm. --- Circadian rhythms. --- Circadian-rhythm. --- Circadian-rhythms. --- Circadian. --- Consequences. --- Corticosterone secretion. --- Corticosterone,distributed pregnancy,therapeutic strategy. --- Corticosterone. --- Design. --- Disorder. --- Enriched environment. --- Enriched. --- Enrichment. --- Environment. --- Environmental enrichment. --- Exposure. --- Expression. --- Function. --- Hpa axis. --- Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal. --- Juvenile rats. --- Maternal separation. --- Messenger-rna. --- Mice. --- Model. --- Open-field behavior. --- Physical. --- Play behaviour. --- Play. --- Prenatal stress. --- Prenatal. --- Rat. --- Rats. --- Reactivity. --- Response. --- Restraint stress. --- Restraint. --- Rhythm. --- Rhythms. --- Secretion. --- Social behaviour. --- Social interactions. --- Social play. --- Social. --- Strategies. --- Strategy. --- Stress.