title: Hoarding behavior of AKR, C57BL/6 mice and their F1 in their home living space: an automatic recording technique.
abstract: Earlier genetic analysis of food hoarding behavior in mice used test situations in which animals were allowed to hoard food only during short time periods. This paper describes a technique to measure food hoarding over long time periods. Small discs of standard food are equipped with a steel clip and each passage of a mouse bringing such a food disc from the food search enclosure to the nest is detected by an electromagnetic sounding lead connected to a pen recorder. Preliminary results show that female mice begin to hoard earlier than males; one of the two reciprocal F1 has a shorter latency to hoard than the other one. Results also show differences between two parental inbred strains and their reciprocal F1 for the light-dark distribution of hoarding.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002940:Circadian Rhythm; D003433:Crosses, Genetic; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008806:Mice, Inbred AKR / Q000502:physiology*; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL / Q000502:physiology*; D009425:Nesting Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D012737:Sex Factors; D013997:Time Factors