An exploratory animal-economics study to evaluate the motivation of group-housed rabbit does to access different...

Eight New Zealand White nulliparous rabbit does (Oryctolagus cuniculus) were housed in two customised motivational pens, each comprising a central group area (feeders and drinkers) connected to four individual compartments containing different enrichment resources: none-control, hiding box, sand, and straw. The system required the rabbit does to push a transparent door to gain access to the compartments. The workload became progressively heavier at 48-hour intervals (ranging from 0 to 150 g of added weight) during an 8-day test period. This experimental setup was replicated across four consecutive trials (in total 32 trial days), and behavioral data were video-recorded for 60 min per day. Outcomes evaluated included time-budget allocation (group vs. individual areas, and specific resource choices within the individual areas), daily visits per doe, visit probability, and a comprehensive suite of animal-economics indices (elasticity of demand, expenditure rate, consumer surplus, and effort budget allocation). The results demonstrated that does spent significantly more time in the central group area than in the individual compartments overall; however, this allocation was strongly influenced by the door weight. Among the individual compartments, the zone containing straw accounted for the highest time allocation (17.5%), followed by the hiding box (8.6%), the empty control (3.0%), and sand (1.8%). Daily visits to these individual areas systematically declined as the workload cost increased, showing distinct motivational differences among the resources (straw > hiding box > control > sand). In conclusion, these preliminary behavioral trends suggest that individual seclusion could be considered a price-dependent, non-essential resource for nulliparous rabbits under these conditions. Beyond these specific behavioral findings, this study successfully validates a robust methodological framework. By integrating standardized pen architecture, controlled workload increments, automated door systems, and animal-economics processing indices, this model establishes a scalable framework. This standardized methodology can be reliably adapted in future research to decouple confounding environmental factors and systematically evaluate the behavioral priorities of reproducing does across diverse commercial husbandry systems and physiological stages.