Abstract: The large fluctuations seen in cattle populations during periods of drought in sub-Saharan Africa are not evident in the donkey population. Donkeys appear to have a survival advantage over cattle that is increasingly recognized by smallholder farmers in their selection of working animals. The donkey's survival advantages arise from both socioeconomic and biological factors. Socioeconomic factors include the maintenance of a low sustainable population of donkeys owing to their single-purpose role and their low social status. Also, because donkeys are not usually used as a meat animal and can provide a regular income as a working animal, they are not slaughtered in response to drought, as are cattle. Donkeys have a range of physiological and behavioural adaptations that individually provide small survival advantages over cattle but collectively may make a large difference to whether or not they survive drought. Donkeys have lower maintenance costs as a result of their size and spend less energy while foraging for food; lower energy costs result in a lower dry matter intake (DMI) requirement. In donkeys, low-quality diets are digested almost as efficiently as in ruminants and, because of a highly selective feeding strategy, the quality of diet obtained by donkeys in a given pasture is higher than that obtained by cattle. Lower energy costs of walking, longer foraging times per day and ability to tolerate thirst may allow donkeys to access more remote, under-utilized sources of forage that are inaccessible to cattle on rangeland. As donkeys become a more popular choice of working animal for farmers, specific management practices need to be devised that allow donkeys to fully maximize their natural survival advantages.

Abstract: Soiled bedding influences cleanliness and disease levels in dairy cows and there is no evidence of an inherent latrine behaviour in cattle. If cows were trained to use a concrete area of the housing system as a latrine, a cleaner bed could be maintained. Thirteen group-housed, 14-16-month-old Holstein-Friesian heifers, were clicker trained with heifer-rearing concentrate pellets as a reward. Training was carried out in four phases. (Phase 1) Association of feed reward with clicker, criterion: 34/40 correct responses. (Phase 2) Simple task (nose-butting a disc) to reinforce phase 1 association, criterion: 17/20 correct responses. (Phase 3) Association of eliminative behaviour with reward where criterion was four sessions with only one incorrect response: criteria for each heifer in phases 1-3 were set using binomial tests. (Phase 4) Shaping eliminative behaviour to occur on concrete. Possible responses were, eliminating on concrete (C) or straw (S), or moving from one substrate to another immediately before eliminating: C --> S, S --> C. Heifers were rewarded for the desired behaviours C and S --> C and ignored when S and C --> S occurred. If learning was achieved, C should increase as C --> S decreased and S --> C should increase as S decreased: tested with Spearman rank correlations. All heifers achieved criterion by day 4 of phase 1 (P = 0.001); day 1 of phase 2 (P = 0.001) and day 10 of phase 3 (P < 0.009). Responses changed throughout phase 3 beginning with (i) looking at the trainer whilst voiding then moving to trainer after the click, and later including (ii) moving to trainer immediately before- or (iii) during voiding. No relationship was found between S and S --> C (rs = -0.14; P = 0.63) or C and C --> S (rs = -0.33; P = 0.25). All group members eliminated more often on concrete (580) than on straw (141) but four heifers with consistently longer lying bouts also showed more C --> S before lying down (Mann-Whitney, P = 0.007). The present study is believed to be the first reported work to show that cattle can be trained to show an awareness of their own eliminative behaviour. This was not successfully shaped to latrine behaviour, however, and it is suggested that floor type may not have been a sufficiently salient cue. Voiding on straw occurred largely with response C --> S (0.73) and general behaviour suggested that this was strongly linked to lying patterns of individual heifers.

Abstract: From observations of intra-specific social grooming in cattle and studies on human stroking in other species, we hypothesised that cows' reactions to human stroking differ depending on the body regions being stroked. Moreover, we tested, whether cows `reactions to stroking change with the animals' experience of stroking. Sixty dairy cows were stroked in three different body regions, i.e. the withers, W, neck ventral, NV (both licked often in social grooming) and the lateral chest, LC (licked rarely), in a balanced order during 10-min sessions. Behavioural reactions and heart rate during stroking as well as reactions to the human just after stroking were recorded. Two test sessions were carried out with 3 weeks of treatment in-between. During this period, the cows were randomly allocated to four treatment groups: three groups received 5 min of daily stroking in either W, NV or LC and the last one (control group) was exposed to simple human presence. During stroking W and NV, cows showed longer neck stretching and ear hanging than during stroking LC (P < 0.001). Moreover, ear hanging was shown longer when W was stroked as compared to NV (P < 0.001), but neck stretching was observed longer during stroking NV as compared to W only after the treatment period (P < 0.01). In the first test session, more animals showed head shaking and head throwing during stroking W and NV than LC (P < 0.01), whereas in the second test session these behaviours were observed only in few animals. In the first test session heart rate was higher during stroking W than the other body regions (P <= 0.01). In the second test session, the lowest heart rate was found during stroking NV (P < 0.05). Finally, contact with the experimenter following stroking differed for the three body regions stroked in both test sessions (first: P = 0.06, second: P < 0.01); contact was shortest for LC. When comparing both test sessions, stretching the neck and ear hanging increased (P < 0.001), while head shaking and head throwing decreased (P < 0.05); there was no difference for heart rate and contact with the experimenter. The four treatments had no influence on reactions to stroking. To conclude, stroking of body regions often licked during social grooming led to more responses than stroking the one licked rarely. Some reactions, such as stretching the neck, are also observed during social licking. This suggests that cows may in part perceive human stroking of body regions often licked similarly to social licking. This knowledge could be of interest for an improvement in quality of human-cattle interactions.

Abstract: The human-animal relationship is an important factor when considering animal welfare at herd level. In the present study, two behavioural tests for the on-farm assessment of the human-animal relationship at herd level of dairy cows housed in loose housing cubicle systems were evaluated with respect to inter-observer reliability, test-retest reliability, effect of familiarity of test person as well as inter-correlation of the two tests. In a voluntary animal approach (VAA) test, the number of cows and the latencies to approach and touch a stationary test person was measured. In an avoidance (AV) test, the cows' avoidance reactions to an approaching test person were categorised. A first study was carried out in 12 commercial Danish and Austrian dairy farms. On each farm, both behaviour tests were carried out on the same day and repeated within 4-5 days. For each test, cows were tested by both an unfamiliar and a familiar test person (the stock-person) and two observers simultaneously registered the animals' test responses. The inter-observer reliability of both behavioural tests was found to be high (VAA: 2.5-m approach r=0.98 (P<0.001) and touch r=0.97 (P<0.001); AV: Kappa coefficientweighted=0.886 (prevalence index for flight distance>=2 m is 0.636)). The cows at herd level showed shortest latency for touching an unfamiliar test person on the first test day (P=0.006). Further, the AV test had a high test-retest reliability (Kappa coefficientweighted=0.503 (prevalence index for flight distance>=2 m is -0.660)) and results indicated no effect of familiarity of test person (Kappa coefficientweighted=0.463 (prevalence index for flight distance>=2 m is -0.677)). In a second study, the correlation between the two behavioural tests (similar measures) was evaluated. On each of 10 commercial Danish dairy farms with loose housing cubicle systems at four repeated sessions, both behaviour tests were carried out on the same day. For each test cows were tested by the stock-person. The VAA and AV tests at herd level were highly correlated (rs=-0.84; P=0.002). The results suggest that the AV test is valid and applicable for on-farm assessment of the human-animal relationship at herd level. This accounts only partly for the VAA test, which seem to be more unclear regarding motivation for the animals' approach behaviour.

Abstract: The major objective of this study was to identify a simple and accurate method of assessing differences in female social status. Three methods of estimating dominance value (DV) were compared in beef cows of three breed-types; Angus (A; n=10), Brahman (B; n=10), and Senepol (S; n=10). Cows were equitably assigned to two groups of fifteen each, allocated into separate pastures and containing equal number of animals by breed. Agonistic interactions were recorded for 45 d of study, in two 1 h periods during concentrate feeding using the method of competitive orders winner/loser. Methods of estimating DV included: I) Ratio between individuals dominated and total encountered, II) Ratio between encounters won to total encounters, III) Proportion of individuals dominated to total herdmates. Due to the different level of interactivity evidenced among animals as well as between and within social orders, method III with subsequent arc-sin transformation was considered as the most practical and accurate method for estimating DV and subsequent allocation of cows into a social dominance order. In addition, a breed effect was found on social dominance. Senepol cows obtained greater DV`s (1.24 ± 0.08) than Angus (0.97 ± 0.08; P<0.03) and Brahman cows (0.76 ± 0.08; P<0.005).