The social network structure of a dynamic group of dairy cows: From individual to group level patterns

Boyland, Natasha; Mlynski, David T.; James, Richard; Brent, Lauren J. N.; Croft, Darren P.

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2015.11.016

Cited by 99 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Assortative mixing refers to the tendency for individuals to associate more with those that are similar to them in some way, and has been found in networks of adult cattle [75]. The degree of familiarity is likely to have reflected the strength of social bonds, therefore our results support previous findings of cattle associations (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Pair Housing of Dairy Calves and Age at Pairing: Effects on Weaning Stress, Health, Production and Social Networks

et al. 2017

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The early social environment can influence the health and behaviour of animals, with effects lasting into adulthood. In Europe, around 60% of dairy calves are reared individually during their first eight weeks of life, while others may be housed in pairs or small groups. This study assessed the effects of varying degrees of social contact on weaning stress, health and production during pen rearing, and on the social networks that calves later formed when grouped. Forty female Holstein-Friesian calves were allocated to one of three treatments: individually housed (I, n = 8), pair-housed from day five (P5, n = 8 pairs), and pair-housed from day 28 (P28, n = 8 pairs). From day 48, calves were weaned by gradual reduction of milk over three days, and vocalisations were recorded as a measure of stress for three days before, during and after weaning. Health and production (growth rate and concentrate intakes) were not affected by treatment during the weaning period or over the whole study. Vocalisations were highest post-weaning, and were significantly higher in I calves than pair-reared calves. Furthermore, P28 calves vocalised significantly more than P5 calves. The social network of calves was measured for one month after all calves were grouped in a barn, using association data from spatial proximity loggers. We tested for week-week stability, social differentiation and assortment in the calf network. Additionally, we tested for treatment differences in: coefficient of variation (CV) in association strength, percentage of time spent with ex-penmate (P5 and P28 calves only) and weighted degree centrality (the sum of the strength of an individual’s associations). The network was relatively stable from weeks one to four and was significantly differentiated, with individuals assorting based on prior familiarity. P5 calves had significantly higher CV in association strength than I calves in week one (indicating more heterogeneous social associations) but there were no significant treatment differences in week four. The mean percentage of time that individuals spent with their ex-penmate after regrouping decreased from weeks 1–4, though treatment did not affect this. There were also no significant differences in weighted degree centrality between calves in each rearing treatment. These results suggest that early pair-rearing can allow calves the stress buffering benefits of social support (and that this is more effective when calves are paired earlier) without compromising health or production, and sheds light on the early development of social behaviour in cattle.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Pair Housing of Dairy Calves and Age at Pairing: Effects on Weaning Stress, Health, Production and Social Networks

et al. 2017

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“…A positive correlation was found between proximity and other affiliative interactions. Cows also interacted with other cows with similar traits, such as gregariousness, breed, and number of lactations (Boyland et al, 2016). At the group level, there did not appear to be evidence of sub-communities, but rather of a large, integrated community.…”

Section: Social Complexitymentioning

confidence: 98%

The Psychology of Cows

Marino¹,

Allen²

2017

ABC

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-Domestic cows (Bos taurus) are consumed worldwide as beef and veal, kept as dairy product producers, employed as draft animals in labor, and are used for a long list of other products, including leather and manure. But despite global reliance on cows for thousands of years, most people's perception of them is as plodding herd animals with little individual personality and very simple social relationships or preferences. Yet, a review of the scientific literature on cow behavior points to more complex cognitive, emotional and social characteristics. Moreover, when cow behavior is addressed, it is almost entirely done within the framework of and applied to their use as food commodities. Therefore, there is relatively little attention to the study of cow intelligence, personality and sociality at a basic comparative level. In this review, we examine the current state of scientific knowledge about cows within an objective comparative framework, describing their cognitive, emotional, and social characteristics. Our aim is to provide a more veridical and objective current summary of cow psychology on its own terms and in ways which will facilitate better-informed comparisons with other animals. Moreover, an understanding of the capabilities and characteristics of domestic cows will, it is hoped, advance our understanding of who they are as individuals.

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“…Hitherto, few studies have applied social network analysis to farm animals. The only reports on livestock have investigated agonistic interactions in pigs (Büttner et al, 2015a and2015b;Foister et al, 2018), dynamic group structures in dairy cows (Boyland et al, 2016) and behavioural disorders in pigs (Li et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social network analysis in pigs: impacts of significant dyads on general network and centrality parameters

Büttner

Czycholl

Mees

et al. 2020

Animal

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In general, one animal is considered dominant over another animal if it has won more fights than its opponent. Whether this difference in won and lost fights is significant is neglected in most studies. Thus, the present study evaluates the impact of two different calculation methods for dyadic interactions with a significant asymmetric outcome on the results of social network analysis regarding agonistic interactions of pigs in three different mixing events (weaned piglets, fattening pigs and gilts). Directly after mixing, all animals were video recorded for 17 (fattening pigs, gilts) and 28 h (weaned piglets), documenting agonistic interactions. Two calculation methods for significant dyads, that is, dyadic interactions with a clear dominant subordinate relationship in which one animal has won significantly more fights than its encounter, were proposed: pen individual limits were calculated by a sign test considering the differences of won and lost fights of all dyadic interactions in each pen; dyad individual limits were determined by a one-sided sign test for each individual dyad. For all data sets (ALL, including all dyadic interactions; PEN or DYAD, including only significant dyads according to pen or dyad individual limits), networks were built based on the information of initiator and receiver with the pigs as nodes and the edges between them illustrating attacks. General network parameters describing the whole network structure and centrality parameters describing the position of each animal in the network were calculated. Both pen and dyad individual limits revealed only a small percentage of significant dyads for weaned piglets (12.4% or 8.8%), fattening pigs (4.2% or 0.6%) and gilts (3.6% or 0.4%). The comparison between the data sets revealed only high Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients (rS) for the density, that is, percentage of possible edges that were actually present in the network, whereas the centrality parameters showed only moderate rS values (0.37 to 0.75). Thus, the rank order of the animals changed due to the exclusion of insignificant dyads, which shows that the results obtained from social network analysis are clearly influenced if insignificant dyads are excluded from the analyses. Due to the fact that the pen individual limits consider the overall level of agonistic interactions within each pen, this calculation method should be preferred over the dyad individual limits. Otherwise, too many animals in the group became isolated nodes with zero centrality for which no statement about their position within the network can be made.

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The social network structure of a dynamic group of dairy cows: From individual to group level patterns

Cited by 99 publications

References 53 publications

Pair Housing of Dairy Calves and Age at Pairing: Effects on Weaning Stress, Health, Production and Social Networks

Pair Housing of Dairy Calves and Age at Pairing: Effects on Weaning Stress, Health, Production and Social Networks

The Psychology of Cows

Social network analysis in pigs: impacts of significant dyads on general network and centrality parameters

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