Qualitative assessment of social behaviour of dairy cows housed in loose housing systems

This study evaluates the qualitative assessment of dairy cows’ social behaviour on farm with regard to its interand intra-observer reliability and its correlation to quantitative ethogram-based assessment. Qualitative behaviour assessment is a method based upon the integration by observers of perceived animal behaviour expression, using descriptors such as ‘calm’, ‘aggressive’, ‘sociable’ or ‘indifferent’. Cows’ behaviour at the drinker was video recorded in five commercial dairy herds with loose housing systems. Qualitative assessment of 25 video clips showing various types of cows’ interaction was provided in two replicate studies by 12 experienced dairy cow observers, through the use of a methodology called free choice profiling (FCP). This method gives the observers complete freedom to choose their own descriptive terms. Furthermore, an ethogram was used to quantify the cows’ social behaviour in the same 25 video clips. The ethogram included frequency and duration of social licking, head and body sniffing, pushing, head butting, fighting and behavioural response to pushing or head butting. Data of the qualitative assessment were analysed with generalised procrustes analysis (GPA), a multivariate statistical technique associated with FCP. The correlation between qualitative and the quantitative assessment of the 25 video clips was investigated by calculating Spearman rank correlation between the qualitative assessments and the calculated frequencies and proportional durations of the ethogram measures. The results indicate that observers showed significant agreement in their qualitative assessments (P < 0.001) and could accurately repeat these assessments (P < 0.001). The GPA found two main dimensions of assessed social behaviour expression in dairy cattle which together explain 74% of the variation observed. Dimension 1 www.elsevier.com/locate/applanim Applied Animal Behaviour Science 101 (2006) 40–53 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +45 89 99 13 50; fax: +45 89 99 15 00. E-mail address: [email protected] (T. Rousing). 0168-1591/$ – see front matter # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2005.12.009 was characterised as ‘relaxed’/‘calm’ versus ‘aggressive’/‘bullying’ and dimension 2 as ‘passive’/ ‘indifferent’ versus ‘playful’/‘sociable’. The qualitative scores of individual social interactions on these dimensions were correlated significantly to the quantitative measurements of cows showing social licking, head butting and response to pushing or head butting in the respective video clips. Thus, cows showed more social licking in social interactions characterised as ‘relaxed’/‘calm’ (rfrequency = 0.68; rduration = 0.68; both P < 0.001) and ‘playful’/‘sociable’ (rfrequency = 0.58; rduration = 0.59; both P < 0.01) while in ‘aggressive’/‘bullying’ social interactions cows showed more head butting (rfrequency = 0.55, P < 0.01; rduration = 0.62, P < 0.001) and response to pushing and head butting (rfrequency = 0.42, P < 0.05). These results suggest that qualitative behaviour assessment may be a reliable method for the assessment of on-farm social interactions in dairy cows. # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.