Training billy goats to collect semen by operant conditioning using a dummy

Abstract

Semen collection in goat artificial insemination centers requires the use of a teaser female. Besides playing an important role in stimulating the billy goat, the teaser is essential to collect semen in an artificial vagina. To improve the welfare of our animals, we wanted to develop a dummy for the bucks to mount instead of using a teaser female. Thus was born our «Buck welfare and behavior» project (Beacbouc) in January 2023. This article describes the various stages in the development of the dummy and implementation of the semen collection system.