Understanding Allogrooming Through a Dynamic Social Network Approach: An Example in a Group of Dairy Cows

Abstract

For gregarious species such as domestic cattle, the social environment is a very important determinant of their welfare and fitness. Understanding the complexity of cows' relationships can assist the development of management practices that are more integrated with the cows' social behavioral processes. The two aims of this study were: (1) to determine the dynamics of affiliative relationships, as indicated by allogrooming, by means of stochastic actor-oriented modeling, in dairy cows during early lactation; (2) to explore the underlying processes and the individual attributes, such as age, social rank and reproductive state, that could shape network pattern changes in grooming contacts between individual. We observed the allogrooming behavior of a dynamic group of 38 dairy cows for 4 h per day for 30 days. Using stochastic actor-oriented models, we modeled the dynamics of weekly contacts and studied how structural processes (e.g., reciprocity, transitivity, or popularity) and individual attributes (i.e., age, social rank, and reproductive state) influence network changes. We found that cows tended to groom individuals that had previously groomed them, implying a possible cooperation. Cows that groomed more actively did not appear to have a preference for specific individuals in the herd, and in return, tended to be groomed by fewer cows over time. Older individuals groomed more cows than younger ones, indicating that allogrooming could be related to seniority. Cows groomed mainly individuals of similar age, suggesting that familiarity and growing up together enhanced social grooming. Over time, cows with higher social rank were groomed by fewer cows and individuals recently reintroduced to the group groomed more herdmates. The study of social network dynamics can be used to better understand the complexity and non-linearity of cow relationships. Our findings, along with further research, can complement and strengthen the design of improved management practices that are more in line with the natural social behavior of cows.

Towards a Positive Welfare Protocol for Cattle: A Critical Review of Indicators and Suggestion of How We Might Proceed

“…Allogrooming and self-grooming are rare but conspicuous behaviours which can be easily recognised. Allogrooming in dairy cows was reliably detected by multiple observers during live observations (Kendall's W = 0.96 for 3 observers, Westerath et al, 2009a; ICC = 0.87 de Freslon et al, 2020). A similar agreement has been reported for self-grooming and brush use in calves (Zobel et al, 2017;Horvath and Miller-Cushon, 2019) and steers (Toaff-Rosenstein et al, 2016).…”

Proximity Interactions in a Permanently Housed Dairy Herd: Network Structure, Consistency, and Individual Differences

“…Researchers have demonstrated that inter-individual variation in sociality is an individual trait in dairy cows ( 28 ) influenced by dominance status and personality traits. This may affect an individual's ability to gain resources, such as cubicles, impacting their proximity interactions in the non-feeding zone ( 17 , 21 ), as also speculated by ( 14 ), although we cannot distinguish between these potential factors in this study.…”

“…Individual attributes are thought to be important in disease transmission ( 7 ), as cows participate in contact behaviors based on age and sex. Dairy cows may groom conspecifics based on familiarity and dominance ( 21 ), although affiliative and agonistic interaction networks may not be correlated ( 22 ).…”

“…Data can be collected for SNA in non-automated ways, such as through direct observation ( 7 , 21 ) or through analysis of video recordings ( 22 ). Although detailed social interaction data can be obtained through these methods, they are highly time-consuming, and limit sample size and sampling duration.…”

The Informational Affective Tie Mechanism: On the Role of Uncertainty, Context, and Attention in Caring

“…Examples abound of animals showing prosocial behavior -improving another individual's welfareand enduring relationships (partnerships, bonds, sometimes called friendships; see Massen et al 2010, Seyfarth andCheney 2012). Among them are primates like chimpanzees and baboons, horses, dolphins, elephants, hyenas (for references, see Seyfarth and Cheney 2012), cows (e.g., de Freslon et al 2020), rodents such as voles (Young and Wang 2004) and rats (Ben-Ami Bartal et al 2014), birds like parrots (Brucks and von Bayern 2020), and fish (Soares et al 2012). Evidence of prosocial behavior and enduring relationships extends to plants and bacteria, as indicated by studies on mutualisms between plants and mycorrhizal fungi (Kummel and Salant 2006, Kiers et al 2011, Fellbaum et al 2012) and between legumes and rhizobia Taylor 2002, West et al 2002).…”