Effects Of Food-Deprivation And Length Of Test On Muricide In Rats

Long-Evans hooded rats were divided into three feeding conditions: ad lib, deprivation, or deprivation/ad lib. Approximately one-half of the animals received a 5-min mouse-killing test while the remaining animals received a 20-min, 24-hr mouse-killing test. Results indicate that food deprivation is a powerful determinant of the initiation of mouse killing in rats, but subsequent maintenance of the killing response is less dependent of feeding schedules. The probability of mouse killing is not affected by shifting deprived rats to an ad lib feeding schedule; however, response latencies are significantly increased by this manipulation. In addition, the results of this study indicate the need for future research to determine a standard and optimum mouse-killing test duration.