Box-Mate Animals

At 13 wk of age, birds participating as box-mates (see below) were randomly assigned to one experimental female and provided with an IPB device that remained fitted on their back for at least 7 d prior testing to facilitate habituation. A full IPB description and its usefulness for social behavioral studies were published by Pellegrini et al. (2015). Being fitted with the IPB allows us to ensure that those birds were restricted to only one area of their testing boxes. It is important to recall that box-mate females were housed with a female partner and therefore at the time of the experiment they were all non-inseminated (laying infertile eggs).