Measuring fear as vigilance
in dairy cattle
T. Welp*2, J. Rushen1, D.L.
Kramer3, M. Festa-Bianchet2 and A.M. de Passille1
1Dairy & Swine Research
and Development Centre, Lennoxville, Canada, 2Universite de Sherbrooke,
Sherbrooke, Canada, 3McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Wild animals will alter their vigilance levels, at the expense of feeding time, in response to predation risk. We tested dairy cattle to determine whether they had maintained this behaviour and whether time spent vigilant changed in response to an aversive, gentle or neutral handler. The tests were conducted in large enclosures with a food source for 3 to 5 minutes for 12 trials per cow. The feeders used restricted the animal’s view so that it could not feed and scan simultaneously. Vigilance time was defined as any time the animal’s head was not in feeder. In experiment 1, 40 cows were exposed to a dog, human, and control situation following a balanced order in trials 6, 9, and 12. Time vigilant was 46.9%, 57.3%, and 71.8% (± 4.0% SEM) for the control, human and dog trials. Compared to the control, both stimuli alter vigilance time (p<0.05). During the habituation trials, vigilance time decreased with repeated experience. In experiment 2, 20 cows were trained with an aversive and gentle handler for 3 weeks prior to testing. They were tested with the aversive, gentle, and neutral handler present following a balanced order in trials 10, 11, and 12. Time vigilant was 43.0%, 46.5%, and 61.5% (± 4.4% SEM) for the neutral, gentle, and aversive trials. The aversive handler increased vigilance time compared to the neutral (p<0.05) and gentle (p<0.07) handlers. However, during these habituation trials, vigilance time increased with repeated experience suggesting that habituation can be inconsistent between environments. These results suggest that cows have not only retained vigilance in their behavioural repertoire but that this behaviour might be used to measure the degree of fearfulness towards different situations and people in domestic cattle.