Social hierarchy and feed supplementation of heifers: Line or piles?

Bica, Gabriela Schenato; Teixeira, Dayane Lemos; Hötzel, María José; Filho, Luiz Carlos Pinheiro Machado

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2019.104852

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Within cattle herds, social status influences access to resources such as water ( Coimbra et al, 2012 ) and food ( Bica et al, 2019 ), suggesting a strong link between social skills and welfare ( Estevez et al, 2007 ). Under natural conditions, calves live in complex social groups ( Whalin et al, 2021 ), but on many dairy farms, particularly in North America, preweaning calves are housed individually ( USDA, 2016 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Social housing improves dairy calves' performance in a competition test

Suchon,

Ede,

Vandresen

et al. 2023

JDS Communications

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Graphical Abstract Summary: We investigated the effect of early social housing on dairy calves' competitive skills. Calves (3 weeks old) who had been individually or pair housed were subjected to a competition test for milk against a group-reared calf for 5 days. During these tests, pair-housed calves spent, on average, more time drinking from the bottle and were faster to approach the reward than individually housed calves. Two personality tests measuring boldness were also conducted before and after competition tests. Bolder calves tended, on average, to show reduced latencies to the bottle. This work supports early social housing as beneficial for dairy calves.

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confidence: 99%

Social housing improves dairy calves' performance in a competition test

Suchon,

Ede,

Vandresen

et al. 2023

JDS Communications

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“…However, the fact that the higher ranked heifers spent more time under the trees plus shade cloth area compared to the tree shaded area (and low ranked heifers spent more time in the treed area) suggests that there were aspects of the trees plus shade cloth microenvironment that were important to the high ranked heifers. High ranking individuals have been shown to have priority access to resources over low ranking individuals [ 30 , 31 ]. Schütz et al [ 32 ] concluded that dairy cows have preferences for shade that offers greater protection against solar radiation in the summer.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dairy Heifer Motivation for Access to a Shaded Area

Cardoso

Keyserlingk

Filho

et al. 2021

Animals

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We used an operant conditioning paradigm to test the motivation of non-pregnant dairy heifers to access shade during the summer and autumn months (January to June) in southern Brazil. Dairy heifers (n = 18) were trained to push a weighted gate to access either an experimental area containing both a shaded (simple tree shade and shade cloth) and unshaded area (WITH SHADE) or an experimental area with no shade (BARREN). The latency to push the weighted gate, and the maximum weight pushed by each heifer, were recorded in both the summer and the autumn. Temperature and humidity were recorded continuously for the duration of the study and were used to calculate the heat index. The maximum weight pushed to enter the WITH SHADE area was greater in summer than in autumn, and was inversely related to the latency to push the weighted gate. Heifers refused to work for access to the BARREN environment. As expected, both the maximum ambient temperatures and heat index were higher in summer than in autumn, and also higher in the non-shaded areas than under the shade in both seasons. Heifers of higher social rank displaced other heifers more often, and spent more time in the shaded areas, particularly in the area with trees plus a shade cloth, than the intermediate and subordinate heifers. We conclude that shade is an important and valued resource for heifers reared on pasture-based systems in sub-tropical environments, particularly during the hot summer months.

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“…While the Kondo and Hurnik [14] method considers all competition than an animal was involved (i.e., as actor or reactor) in relation to other herd members, without ponderations. Other authors also preferred this index for similar reason [11,12,[22][23][24]. To our knowledge, socialh is the first R package that adopted the method proposed by Kondo and Hurnik [14].…”

Section: Replacement Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, sensors have been shown to be useful for monitoring the cows’ location [ 1 ], activities (e.g., walking [ 2 , 3 ]; lying down [ 4 , 5 ]), and feeding and drinking behaviour (time and duration [ 6 , 7 ]). Furthermore, electronic feeders and drinkers are also useful for detecting social competition [ 8 – 10 ] since most disputes occur during feed time [ 11 , 12 ] and at drinkers on hot days [ 13 ]. With the data from electronic bins is possible to define a competition; once an animal (the actor) takes the place of the previous animal (reactor) at the bin [ 8 , 10 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

socialh: An R package for determining the social hierarchy of animals using data from individual electronic bins

et al. 2022

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Cattle have a complex social organization, with negative (agonistic) and positive (affiliative) interactions that affect access to environmental resources. Thus, the social behaviour has a major impact on animal production, and it is an important factor to improve the farm animal welfare. The use of data from electronic bins to determine social competition has already been validated; however, the studies used non-free software or did not make the code available. With data from electronic bins is possible to identify when one animal takes the place of another animal, i.e. a replacement occurs, at the feeders or drinkers. However, there is no package for the R environment to detect competitive replacements from electronic bins data. Our general approach consisted in creating a user-friendly R package for social behaviour analysis. The workflow of the socialh package comprises several steps that can be used sequentially or separately, allowing data input from electronic systems, or obtained from the animals’ observation. We provide an overview of all functions of the socialh package and demonstrate how this package can be applied using data from electronic feed bins of beef cattle. The socialh package provides support for researchers to determine the social hierarchy of gregarious animals through the synthesis of agonistic interactions (or replacement) in a friendly, versatile, and open-access system, thus contributing to scientific research.

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Social hierarchy and feed supplementation of heifers: Line or piles?

Cited by 7 publications

References 38 publications

Social housing improves dairy calves' performance in a competition test

Social housing improves dairy calves' performance in a competition test

Dairy Heifer Motivation for Access to a Shaded Area

socialh: An R package for determining the social hierarchy of animals using data from individual electronic bins

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