Operant conditioning of the unrestrained goat (Capra hircus)

Abstract Unrestrained goats were trained by the method of successive approximations to press a ‘press panel’ with their muzzles and heads to obtain a 1 g Bio-Serv banana-flavored dustless, precision pellet or 4 g of Ful-O-Pep (sweet) horse feed. In a typical 30–45 min session, the goats pressed the ‘press panel’ an average of 1511 (±179) presses for pellets and 1605 (±521) presses for sweet feed. One goat received 1440 g (260 reinforcements) of sweet feed, which represented approx. 7%/BW of the goat (19.9 kg). These results demonstrate that unrestrained goats can be trained easily to perform an operant conditioning task for a feed reward. Operant methodology can be used to determine feed preferences or to evaluate effects of a wide variety of treatments, such as drugs, environmental conditions (effects of heat, cold, etc.), and management techniques (overcrowding, transportation) on motivation and performance.