Browsing by Browse by FOR 2020 "3003 Animal management"

Attentional biases towards threatening stimuli are increased when animals are in anxious states. An ability to assess negatively valanced affective states such as anxiety are important as they may be related to poor welfare. Flight speed and crush score are two well established tests of temperament in cattle, but little is known about their relationship with anxiety. This study was conducted to validate an attention bias test as a measure of anxious states in cattle and to determine whether the temperament trait(s) measured by flight speed and crush score tests were associated with anxiety. Thirty six Angus steers received one of the following pharmacological treatments: 1) anxiogenic (increase anxiety; 1-methy-chlorophenylpiperazine; m-CPP), 2) anxiolytic (decrease anxiety; diazepam) or, 3) control (saline). Thirty minutes later the steers were tested for crush score, flight speed and attention bias. The attention bias test involved measuring the response of each animal to the presence of the threat of a dog for 10 s after which behavioural responses were recorded for 3 min. Steers treated with m-CPP showed increased attention towards the threat (P < 0.01), increased vigilance (P < 0.01), spent more time with their ears backwards (P = 0.022) and had a greater core temperature increase over the test period (P = 0.01) compared to the control and diazepam groups. Cattle treated with m-CPP were significantly slower and less likely to eat in the attention bias test, compared to control and diazepam treated groups (P = 0.04). The diazepam treatment did not affect any of the measures in the attention bias test (P > 0.05). Crush score and flight speed were not affected by treatment (P > 0.05). The results suggest that the pharmacologically induced anxiety state may not be related to these traditional tests of temperament. Increased attention towards the threat and differences in behaviours and body temperature during the attention bias test confirm that this test indicates increased anxiety in cattle. Attention bias testing provides promise as a measure of some negatively valanced affective states in cattle.

This experiment examined whether pre-exposure to an electrical stimulus from electric fencing attenuates associative pairing of audio and electrical stimuli in dairy heifers. Two treatments were applied to 30 weaned heifers naive to electric fencing. Heifers in the ‘electric-fence’ treatment were exposed to an electrified perimeter fence and two periods of strip-grazing using electrified poly-wire. Control heifers remained naïve to electric fencing. The pairing of audio and electrical stimuli was assessed in a feed attractant trial using manually controlled training collars. Heifers received an audio stimulus (2 s; 84 dB) when they breached a virtual fence after which a short electrical stimulus (0.5 s; 120 mW) was administered if they continued to move forward. If the animal stopped moving forward no further stimuli were applied. By the third training session, electric-fence heifers received a lower proportion of electrical stimuli than control heifers (p = 0.03). The more exploratory interactions a heifer had with the electric fence, the lower the proportion of electrical stimuli she received during training (rs = −0.77, p = 0.002). We conclude that experience with electrical fencing enhanced the salience of the electrical stimulus delivered by manual collars used for virtual fence training.

This paper describes the outcomes of a five-year (2011-2016) partnership project between the Indonesian Government and the Australian Centre for international Agricultural Research. The objective was to promote the use of Leucaena leucocephala for fattening cattle in the Provinces of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). Detailed biophysical and socio-economic measurements demonstrated that it was possible to double productivity of smallholder cattle by improving their nutrition based on feeding leucaena, thus improving the livelihoods of farming families. The results highlighted an opportunity to similarly enhance productivity of other smallholder cattle enterprises in Indonesia and in other tropical developing countries.