LAUSR

Abstract We investigated whether nest building and nest site preference are temperature dependent in female mink. We designed two experiments: in Experiment 1, female mink had access to unheated (7 °C, Room7C group) or heated (25 °C, Heated25C group) nest boxes; in Experiment 2, female mink had free choice of nest boxes at three temperatures (7 °C, 16 °C, and 25 °C). We hypothesised that the progress in nest building would be temperature dependent (Experiment 1), with female mink having a temperature preference, and that this preference would shift toward a higher temperature when giving birth (Experiment 2). Nest building decreased with increasing nest box temperature from Day −3 to Day 7 relative to the day of birth (Experiment 1: P 16 °C > 25 °C, P