Question: What sort of things do you find out about animal behaviour from your experiments?

Joanna Cruden answered on 17 Jun 2012:

My aim is usually to find out what environment they prefer to live in and how they cope in the cages within the laboratory, so I have found out that ferrets seem to lose interest and are inactive in a barren cage compared to a cage with enrichment and objects they can manipulate. Rats show a strong preference to be with other rats, mice don’t seem to like to live in a draft, even a gentle draft, and I am just starting to learn about rabbits. Though it does not seem like much it takes a long time to run a test to decide what environment they choose and the behaviours they display.

There is so much more for me to learn, I have been doing it for a few years but all animals are so interesting and individual they amaze me!