Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T08:52:39.222Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On-farm testing of dairy calves’ avoidance response to human approach: Effects of sex, age and test order

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

K Ellingsen-Dalskau ,
KR Dean  and
T Rousing
K Ellingsen-Dalskau*
Affiliation:
Norwegian Veterinary Institute, PO Box 750, Sentrum, N-0106 Oslo, Norway
KR Dean
Affiliation:
Norwegian Veterinary Institute, PO Box 750, Sentrum, N-0106 Oslo, Norway
T Rousing
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Science, University of Aarhus, PO Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark
*
* Contact for correspondence: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Human approach tests are generally accepted as valid measures of the human-animal relationship and hence are widely included in on-farm welfare assessment protocols. Most measures of avoidance response to human approach in production animals have been developed and tested under experimental conditions rather than on commercial farms, thereby making the results less relevant for operational on-farm animal welfare assessment. By contrast, the current study was conducted on calves in their home pens. On 110 Norwegian dairy farms, 548 group-housed calves (aged 22-288 days) were tested individually for their behavioural response to an unfamiliar human approach by a single test person. To conduct the test, the respective calf manager administered concentrates to the manger, followed by the test person who approached each animal in turn in a standardised manner. The avoidance response of the individual calf was categorised as 0 to 5 (maximal to no avoidance) in reaction to an attempted approach and head touch by the test person. The statistical analyses showed that heifer calves were more avoidant compared to bull calves, as were younger bulls compared to older bulls, and that overall avoidance increased in calves that were not tested first.

Keywords

animal welfareavoidance responsedairy calvesfearhuman-animal relationshiphuman approach test
Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 411 - 418
Copyright
© 2020 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

References

Albright, JL and Arave, CW 1997 The Behaviour of Cattle. CAB International: Wallingford, UKCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boissy, A, Terlouw, C and Le Neindre, P 1998 Presence of cues from stressed conspecifics increases reactivity to aversive events in cattle: Evidence for the existence of alarm substances in urine. Physiology & Behavior 63: 489–495. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0031-9384(97)00466-6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bollwein, H, Janett, F and Kaske, M 2016 Impact of nutritional programming on the growth, health, and sexual development of bull calves. Domestic Animal Endocrinology 56: S180–S190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.domaniend.2016.02.006CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Breuer, K, Hemsworth, PH and Coleman, GJ 2003 The effe-ct of positive or negative handling on the behavioural and physio-logical responses of nonlactating heifers. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 84: 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(03)00146-1Google Scholar
Christensen, RHB 2015 Ordinal - Regression Models for Ordinal Data. R package version 2015.6-28. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=ordinalGoogle Scholar
Cramer, MC and Stanton, AL 2015 Associations between health status and the probability of approaching a novel object or statio-nary human in preweaned group-housed dairy calves. Journal of Dairy Science 98: 7298–7308. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2015-9534CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Passillé, AM, Rushen, J, Ladewig, J and Petherick, C 1996 Dairy calves’ discrimination of people based on previous handling. Journal of Animal Science 74: 969–974. https://doi.org/10.2527/1996.745969xGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ellingsen, K, Coleman, GJ, Lund, V and Mejdell, CM 2014 Using Qualitative Behaviour Assessment to explore the link betw-een stockperson behaviour and dairy calf behaviour. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 153: 10–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2014.01.011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gulliksen, SM, Lie, KI, Løken, T and ⊘sterås, O 2009 Calf mortality in Norwegian dairy herds. Journal of Dairy Science 92:2782–2795. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2008-1807CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jago, JG, Krohn, CC and Matthews, LR 1999 The influence of feeding and handling on the development of the human-animal interactions in young cattle. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 62:137–151. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(98)00219-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khan, MA, Bach, A, Weary, DM and von Keyserlingk, MAG 2016 Invited review: Transitioning from milk to solid feed in dairy heifers. Journal of Dairy Science 99: 885–902. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2015-9975CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krohn, CC, Foldager, J and Mogensen, L 1999 Long-term effe-ct of colostrum feeding methods on behaviour in female dairy cal-ves. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica Section A-Animal Science 49: 57–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/090647099421540Google Scholar
Lacroix, A and Pelletier, J 1979 Short-term variations in plasma LH and testosterone in bull calves from birth to 1 year of age. The Journal of the Society for Reproduction and Fertility 55: 81–85. https://doi.org/10.1530/jrf.0.0550081CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lecorps, B, Kappel, S, Weary, DM and von Keyserlingk, MAG 2018a Dairy calves’ personality traits predict social proxi-mity and response to an emotional challenge. Scientific Reports 8:16350. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34281-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lecorps, B, Weary, DM and von Keyserlingk, MAG 2018b Pessimism and fearfulness in dairy calves. Scientific Reports 8: 1421. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-17214-3CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Le Neindre, P, Boivin, X and Boissy, A 1996 Handling of extensively kept animals. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 49: 73–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/0168-1591(95)00669-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lensink, BJ, Raussi, S, Boivin, X, Pyykkönen, M and Veissier, I 2001 Reactions of calves to handling depend on housing condition and previous experience with humans. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 70: 187–199. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(00)00152-0CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lensink, BJ, van Reenen, CG, Engel, B, Rodenburg, TB and Veissier, I 2003 Repeatability and reliability of an approach test to determine calves’ responsiveness to humans: a brief report. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 83: 325–330. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(03)00138-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leruste, H, Lensink, J and Van Reenen, CG 2006 On farm asses-sment of human-animal relationship in group housed calves: repea-tability and feasibility of method. EU project within 6th Framework Programme Welfare Quality ‘Science and society improving animal welfa-re’. Report on subtask 2.2.1.19, EU FOOD –CT-2004-506508Google Scholar
Meagher, RK, von Keyserlingk, MAG, Atkinson, D and Weary, DM 2016 Inconsistency in dairy calves’ responses to tests of fearfulness. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 185: 15–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2016.10.007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintline, EM, Wood, SL, de Passillé, AM, Rushen, J and Tucker, CB 2012 Assessing calf play behavior in an arena test. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 141: 101–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2012.08.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oyekunle, OA, Ibironke, GF and Opabunmi, OA 2012 Relationship between circulating testosterone and emotional behavior in rats. Psychology & Neuroscience 5: 113–116. https://doi.org/10.3922/j.psns.2012.1.15CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawlings, N, Evans, AC, Chandolia, RK and Bagu, ET 2008 Sexual maturation in the bull. Reproductive Domestic Animals 43(2): 295–301. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0531.2008.01177.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rousing, T, Ibsen, B and Sørensen, JT 2005 A note on: On-farm testing of the behavioural response of group-housed calves towards humans; test-retest and inter-observer reliability and effect of familiarity of test person. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 94: 237–243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2005.02.011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousing, T and Waiblinger, S 2004 Evaluation of on-farm methods for testing the human-animal relationship in dairy herds with cubicle loose housing systems test-retest and inter-observer reliability and consistency to familiarity of test person. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 85: 215–231. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2003.09.014CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rushen, J, de Passillé, AMB and Munksgaard, L 1999a Fear of people by cows and effects on milk yield, behavior, and heart rate at milking. Journal of Dairy Science 82: 720–727. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.S0022-0302(99)75289-6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rushen, J, Taylor, AA and de Passillé, AM 1999b Domestic animals’ fear of humans and its effect on their welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 65: 285–303. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(99)00089-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sakamoto, Y, Ishiguro, M and Kitagawa, G 1986 Akaike infor-mation criterion statistics. KTK Scientific Publishers: Tokyo, JapanGoogle Scholar
Schuetz, E, Hawke, M, Waas, J, McLeay, L, Bokkers, EAM, Reenen, C, Webster, J and Stewart, M 2012 Effects of human handling during early rearing on the behaviour of dairy calves. Animal Welfare 21: 19–26. https://doi.org/10.7120/096272812799129411Google Scholar
Schütz, KE, Lee, C and DeVries, TJ 2018 Cattle priorities: Feed and water selection, ability to move freely and to access pasture. In: Tucker, CB (ed) Advances in Cattle Welfare pp 93–122. Woodhead Publishing: Cambridge, UK. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-100938-3.00005-XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smulders, FJM and Algers, B 2009 Welfare of Production Animals: Assessment and Management of Risks. Wageningen Academic Publishers: Wageningen, The Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-690-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Council of the European Union 2008 Council Directive 2008/119/EC of 18 December 2008 laying down minimum stan-dards for the protection of calves. Official Journal of the European Union OJ L 10, 15.1.2009: 7-13Google Scholar
van Honk, J, Peper, JS and Schutter, DJLG 2005 Testosterone reduces unconscious fear but not consciously experienced anxie-ty: Implications for the disorders of fear and anxiety. Biological Psychiatry 58: 218–225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.04.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veissier, I, Le Neindre, P, Boivin, X, Lensink, BJ and Pradel, P 2000 Reducing veal calves’ reactivity to people by providing additional human contact. Journal of Animal Science 78: 1213–1218. https://doi.org/10.2527/2000.7851213xGoogle Scholar
Waiblinger, S, Boivin, X, Pedersen, V, Tosi, M-V, Janczak, AM, Visser, EK and Jones, RB 2006 Assessing the human-ani-mal relationship in farmed species: A critical review. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 101: 185–242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2006.02.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waiblinger, S, Menke, C and Fölsch, DW 2003 Influences on the avoidance and approach behaviour of dairy cows towards humans on 35 farms. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 84: 23–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(03)00148-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winckler, C, Algers, B, Van Reenen, K, Leruste, H, Veissier, I and Keeling, L 2009 Welfare Quality® assessment protocol for cattle (fattening cattle, dairy cows, veal calves). Welfare Quality® Consortium: Lelystad, The NetherlandsGoogle Scholar
Windschnurer, I, Boivin, X and Waiblinger, S 2009 Reliability of an avoidance distance test for the assessment of animals’ responsiveness to humans and a preliminary investigation of its association with farmers’ attitudes on bull fattening farms. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 117: 117–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2008.12.013CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zulkifli, I 2013 Review of human-animal interactions and their impact on animal productivity and welfare. Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology 4(25). https://doi.org/10.1186/2049-1891-4-25CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed