Food choice in the laboratory pigeon

Abstract

Although food reward plays a large role in learning and behavioral experiments, there have been few studies examining the most motivating food reward for pigeons. Brown (1969) found that pigeons had a tendency to prefer peas, while Killeen et al. (1993) found pigeons to prefer peas and popcorn in Experiment 1A. We looked to further explore these options as well as expand upon the types of foods examined beyond mainly grains and seeds. Pigeons were presented with six novel foods (granulated peanuts, popping corn, freeze-dried mealworms, bread crumbs, split peas, and sunflower hearts) allocated into two sets of three food items. Once the most consumed food from each food set was determined, they were pooled together with sorghum seeds (a familiar food) to form a third set. Sunflower hearts were the most consumed of all the food items, followed by corn and granulated peanuts. We discuss the potential factors mediating consumption choice, including nutritional profile and food particle size.

Figure 1

Mean percentages of total weight of food consumed by each bird across food types for Set A foods (Panel A), Set B foods (Panel B), and Set C foods (Panel C) across all sessions. Percentages were computed individually for each session and then averaged. Error bars represent the standard errors of the mean of the percentages consumed during each session.

Figure 2

(a) Nutritional content of each food type per 100g. Values were derived from the manufacturer or the USDA. Mealworm nutritional information was retrieved from Exotic Nutrition Pet Co. (b) Calorie content per 100g of each food type. Values were derived from the manufacturer or the USDA. Nutritional information for mealworms was retrieved from Exotic Nutrition Pet Co.