Contrafreeloading and its influencing factors in budgerigars (<i>Melopsittacus undulatus</i>): Implications for their feeding and welfare.

ABSTRACT: Contrafreeloading (CFL) refers to animals' tendency to prefer obtaining food through effort rather than accessing food that is freely available. Researchers have proposed various hypotheses to explain this intriguing phenomenon, but few studies have provided a comprehensive analysis of the factors influencing this behaviour. In this study, we observed the choice of alternative food containers in budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) to investigate their CFL tendencies and the effects of pre-training, food deprivation, and effort required on the CFL tasks. The results showed that budgerigars did not exhibit significant difference in their first choices or the time interacting with less challenging versus more challenging food containers. Moreover, when evaluating each budgerigar's CF

SUBMITTER: Tao Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11949635 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature