EEP Crowned pigeon number 4

EEP STUDBOOK CROWNED PIGEONS
This classification is used by comparing the behaviour in the seven enclosures and every
registration is placed in one of the twelve categories of Koene. After this, the percentage timebudget
of every category is calculated, to enable a comparison between animals, between
enclosures and between the three different types of enclosures. The means are calculated
using PROC MEANS within SAS en the significant differences were calculated using PROC
GLM. This latter method analysed data, which have a normal division, and GLM is able to
work with a few numbers of data (SAS Institute Inc., 1990). If significant differences were
found, Duncan’s multiple Range test (α = 0,05) is used to find out which birds or enclosures
were significant different.
Observational data
Using the methods described as above it is calculated, if there occurred any significant
differences in time-budgets between individuals, between sexes, between enclosures, between
types of enclosures. The SAS-file is available upon request from the author. Furthermore it is
studied whether the behavior of the cock-pigeon and the female should correlate or not. This
has been carried out using a PROC CORR according to the Spearman method.
Experimental data
To determine the preferences of crowned pigeons on different types of substrate (sand and
mould) the behaviour on the substrate is registered. They mainly showed four different types
of behaviour on the substrate: behaviour in time, in space, metabolic behaviour and carebehaviour.
With use of a Single Case Randomized Test (SCRT) it is calculated whether the
birds had a preference to conduct a special type of behaviour on a special type of substrate.
By conducting a Fisher’s exact test it was possible to draw more general conclusions.
SCRT carries out randomizations with experiments if the sample size is one. With the use of
this test the individual effect of an experiment is calculated, without doing any assumptions
about other variables (Van Damme, 1995). Another advantage is, that data from different
animals can be combined for analysing. Because the birds always had the choice between two
kinds of substrate (sand and mould) and two types of behaviour (behaviour in time and space
versus care and metabolic behaviour), an Alternating Treatments Design (ATD) has been
used.
The other experiment comprised changing the perches. Because the animals could only
choose between a thick and a thin perch, there were more observations of just one factor on
one animal. For that reason here the Restricted alternating Treatment Design (RATD) was
chosen, to find out whether there were significant differences in the two situations.
101