New Zealand Journal of Zoology abstracts

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Potential compounds for inducing conditioned taste aversion in ferrets

Giovanna Massei
Alicia Lyon
David P. Cowan

Central Science Laboratory
Sand Hutton, York YO41 1LZ
United Kingdom

Abstract   Conditioned taste aversion (CTA) develops when an animal associates the taste of a particular food with illness and subsequently avoids consuming that food. We evaluated the potential of two compounds, levamisole hydrochloride and antimony potassium tartrate (APT) to induce CTA to meat in captive ferrets (Mustela furo). On conditioning day, one group of ferrets was presented with meat treated with a compound and another group of ferrets was presented with untreated meat. In post-conditioning tests we established whether ferrets had acquired an aversion to untreated meat. Ferrets could detect levamisole and formed an aversion to this compound. APT induced an aversion to meat in treated ferrets, which ate less meat than controls. We suggest that APT is a promising agent to induce CTA in ferrets, while levamisole can act as a feeding repellent. The ability of levamisole to induce CTA should be tested once the flavour of this compound is masked.

Keywords  ferret; Mustela furo; conditioned taste aversion; food consumption; levamisole hydrochloride; potassium antimony tartrate

Z02015 Received 11 June 2002; accepted 6 January 2003; published 16 June 2003
New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 2003, Vol. 30: 95-100
0301-4223/03/3002-0095 $7.00/0 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2003

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