Behavioral chaining in the goat (Capra hircus)

Abstract Five male castrated goats were trained to perform a behavioral chain. In Experiment I the goats were trained to run in an indoor U-shaped runway. The chain consisted of jumping over three hurdles, walking on a raised walkway, running through two 55 gallon barrels and entering an operant chamber and pressing a response panel on a fixed ratio 10 for a food reward. In Experiment II, a larger outdoor runway was used and the components of the chain were reordered. Before the beginning of Experiment I the goats were trained by the method of successive approximations to press a response panel. It took five to seven 1 h sessions to shape this response. It took 16 sessions to train the goats to perform all components of the behaviour chain under stimulus control. Once the goats reached this point, there were no significant variations in performance of the operant task or the time to complete the chain. Although the serial and geometric arrangement of the components of the chain were altered in Experiment II, it took nine sessions to train the goat to perform the altered chain. The results of this study demonstrate that goats can be easily trained to perform a complex behavioral chain. Once the chain has been learned, the goats readily adapt to alterations in the arrangement of the components and the location of the runway.