Infectious diseases and parasitic infestations can cause a set of non-specific clinical signs, such as increased body temperature and resting, and a decrease in food intake. These physiological and behavioural changes have an adaptive function facilitating defences against the pathogen and to support immune functions. These so-called' sickness behaviours' can also be used as an early detection tool for disease. Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) still causes great economic losses in endemic countries, especially to smallholder farmers. The aim of this study was to determine if behavioural changes in goats can be used as an early indicator of FMD virus (FMDV) infection. The efficacy of a Southern African Territories (SAT) FMD vaccine was studied on forty South African indigenous goats. Changes in daily activities (resting, feeding, walking), as well as social behaviours (social resting, social feeding, dominance behaviours) were recorded and then compared over time and between clinically affected and unaffected goats. Pedometers were used to estimate average daily steps and to compare between groups of study animals. Eleven goats developed clinical signs of FMD, as well as non-FMD related sicknesses during the course of the study. Overall walking and resting behaviours were not significantly affected by the presence of FMD related clinical signs (p > 0.05). However, during the time of FMDV infection, social resting increased significantly (p < 0.001). Although goats developed FMD lesions on lips and tongues, percentage of time feeding was not affected (p = 0.762), suggesting that the study goats did not perceive the oral lesions as an important disturbance. Similarly, the number of steps did not consistently decrease in the presence of FMD-associated foot lesions. When affected by non-FMD related sicknesses, animals did not have an overall reduction in the time spent feeding (p = 0.867). However, goats affected with non-FMD conditions reduced the amount of social feeding (p = 0.002), potentially avoiding energetically costly competition at the feeding points. Overall, goats affected with FMD did not show more sickness behaviour, suggesting that FMDV infection in goats might not lead to obvious and therefore, easily detectable behavioural changes. This might have implications for farmers and animal health personnel, as individual goats infected with FMDV might be undetected within a flock due to the absence of obvious sickness behaviours, and the virus can therefore be spread more easily between herds through animal movements.

中文翻译：

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实验性血清型SAT1病毒感染后口蹄疫对山羊行为的影响。

传染病和寄生虫感染会导致一系列非特异性的临床体征，例如体温升高和休息以及食物摄入减少。这些生理和行为变化具有适应性功能，有助于防御病原体并支持免疫功能。这些所谓的“疾病行为”也可以用作疾病的早期发现工具。口蹄疫仍在流行国家造成巨大的经济损失，特别是对小农而言。这项研究的目的是确定山羊的行为变化是否可以用作FMD病毒（FMDV）感染的早期指标。在40只南非土著山羊上研究了南部非洲领土（SAT）口蹄疫疫苗的功效。日常活动的变化（休息，进食，散步）以及社交行为（社交休息，社交进食，主导行为）被记录下来，然后随时间推移以及在临床上受影响和未受影响的山羊之间进行比较。计步器用于估计平均每日步数，并在研究动物组之间进行比较。在研究过程中，有11只山羊出现了口蹄疫的临床体征，以及与口蹄疫无关的疾病。FMD相关的临床体征对总体步行和休息行为没有显着影响（p> 0.05）。但是，在FMDV感染期间，社交休息显着增加（p <0.001）。尽管山羊的嘴唇和舌头出现口蹄疫损害，但进食时间的百分比没有受到影响（p = 0.762），这表明该研究山羊并未将口腔损害视为重要的疾病。同样，在与FMD相关的足部病变的情况下，步数并没有持续减少。当受与非FMD相关的疾病影响时，动物的进食时间并没有总体减少（p = 0.867）。但是，受非FMD条件影响的山羊减少了社会进食量（p = 0.002），从而有可能避免在进食点上消耗大量能量。总体而言，受口蹄疫感染的山羊没有表现出更多的疾病行为，这表明FMDV感染山羊可能不会导致明显的行为变化，因此很容易检测到。这可能会对农民和动物保健人员产生影响，因为由于缺乏明显的疾病行为，可能在禽群内未检测到受FMDV感染的个别山羊，