A general reaction pattern across situations in prepubertal gilts

situations, 56 prepubertal crossbred Landrace/Yorkshire gilts were subjecte d to a Food Competition Test, an Open Field Test, a Human Test and a Social Test. The undisturbed behaviour was video recorded in the home pen before the tests were performed. Factor analysis on open field data revealed five factors, selected by the criterium of the eigenvalue being bigger than one: (1) immobility, (2) exploratory locomotion, (3) non-exploratory locomotion , (4) object exploration, and (5) central position in the test arena. Facto r analysis on Human Test data resulted in five factors: (1) exploration, (2 ) inactivity, (3) vocalisation, (4) immobility, and (5) escape. Significant correlations were found between the Open Field Test and the Human Test, be tween the Human Test and the Social Test and between the Food Competition T est and the Human Test. Only a tendency to a correlation was found between the Open Field Test and the Social Test. In conclusion in this investigatio n the gilts showed a general, reactivity which was consistent across non-so cial situations and also tended to be so in a social situation with an unkn own pig. Future investigations of relations between social and non-social s ituation, should focus on social contexts where the individuality of the an imal can be tested, to prevent interference form group dynamics, and compar e this measure with reactivity in non-social situations. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.