To determine the potentially effective electric fence heights for Reeves’s muntjacs (Muntiacus reevesi), their exploratory behavior toward fence wires of different heights was investigated. Twelve captive muntjacs (three females and nine males) were used and presented with a nonenergized wire fence with six tiers at 10-cm intervals reaching up to 60 cm in height. A two-tiered fence with 20-cm intervals was also presented as an additional experiment. As a result, all individuals presented the six-tiered fence touched the 20- or 30-cm-high wire with their noses. Only the 20-cm-high fence wire was touched in the two-tiered fence. Most individuals passed between the 20- and 30-cm-high wires, but some individuals passed below the 20-cm-high wire. These results suggest that, with proper application of electric stimulation, a four-tiered fence with 10 cm intervals would be desirable, but a two-tiered fence with 20 cm intervals would also be effective in preventing a Reeves’s muntjac intrusion.

Although swine was domesticated at the early stage of animal domestication history, milking has not been conducted from sow. The purpose of this study is to clarify the difficulty level of sow milking, the amount of labor input for sow milking and production by sow milking, then discuss the factors leading to non-milking in sow from the viewpoint of suckling behavior and labor productivity. Milking from sow was not successful unless it was carried out according to the suckling behavior between sow - her piglet. The milking was laborious work due to the timing of milking, the sow willing for milk secretion, and the easy interruption by the surrounding environments. The milking interval averaged 56.6 minutes and milking success rate remained at 61.3%. The mean amount of milking was only 11.5 ml/7 hours. It was thought that the important one of factors which caused non-milking from sow from the viewpoint of suckling behavior and labor productivity was; 1) the sow milking itself was difficult work, 2) sow milking made a milker detained all day long, 3) the amount of production (milk) was extremely small, and 4) sow's milk was not necessary to be incorporated into local food production system.

It is a common practice in zoos to provide chopped diets to exhibit animals for the purpose of increasing time spent foraging and reducing aggression between group-housed animals, but the studies to measure effects of this practice is still limited. In this study, 10 ring-tailed lemurs in captivity at NIFREL were examined for 30 minutes to observe their behaviors when fed chopped food (1×1×1 cm) or stick-shaped food (1×1×6 cm). As results, ring-tailed lemurs picked up chopped food directly from the floor using their mouths, whereas they ate stick-shaped food by holding it with their forelimbs. In the 30-minute observation, no significant difference was observed between conditions in percentage of time spent for feeding/foraging. On the other hand, the percentage of time spent for allo-grooming significantly increased when stick-shaped food was given (P <0.05). Although similar time-course change of their behavior was seen despite of different shape of food, auto-grooming behavior was significantly more often observed between 11 to 20 minutes in the observation when stick-shaped food was presented than so was chopped food. These results show ring-tailed lemurs could change their behaviors when fed small-chopped food or large stick-shaped food, whereas no extension of time spent feeding/foraging was observed which highlights importance of assessing the effect of feeding animals with chopped food.