13. Beef Cattle Behaviour Flashcards
Beef cattle vision:
- Panoramic vision
- Binocular vision
- Focus
- Pupil shape
- Distinguishing wavelengths
- Depth perception
Panoramic vision = 330
- Blind spot directly behind them
Binocular vision = 25-50
- Allows for greater predator awareness
- Don’t have good depth perception
Focus
- Tend to have weak eye muscles which inhibits their ability to focus quickly on objects
- What they see lacks definition so they will often balk and refuse to cross a shadow or drain grate
Pupils
- Slit-shaped
Wavelengths
- Can distinguish long wavelengths better than shorter wavelengths
- Long: yellow, orange and reds
- Short: blue, grey and greens
- Can distinguish all colours from a grey background except blue
Depth perception
- Poor
Smell
- While grazing, cattle constantly sniff the pasture
- Can distinguish smell
- Secondary olfaction system can detect pheromones (volatile chemicals) important for both reproduction and feed selection
Taste
- Cattle have ~30,000 taste buds that can differentiate acid (sour), bitter, salt, and sweet solutions
What are cattle very sensitive to?
Noise; ears are very sensitive
- Can be calmed with soothing music or stressed by loud noises
- Dairy breeds are more sensitive to sound and touch than beef breeds
How can touch be used to calm cattle?
Cutaneous sensitivity (skin sensitivity) can be used to calm cattle by scratching under the neck and behind the ears
- areas they find difficult to access and scratch
How do cattle flight zones differ?
- Cattle flight zones vary greatly depending on how cattle have been raised and handled
- Feedlot cattle may move away from ppl entering their flight zone (approx 1.5m)
- Less handled range cattle may have a flight zone of 30m
When are dominance hierarchies in young beef steers formed?
Soon after weaning
- remain stable even when the same groups are moved to other pens (new environment)
How is dominance related to eating behaviour in beef cattle?
Dominance and eating behaviour have been observed in beef cattle where only one animal at a time could eat
- found that high-ranking cattle had fewer meals but tended to spend more time per day eating
How does the dominance hierarchy in cattle “function” to avoid a fight?
- In an exchange btw 2 animals where one is larger, healthier, stronger and older it may take no more than a movement gesture or threat to make the smaller animal submit or yield space
- An aggressive bull will turn his body perpendicular to a challenger to display full height and length
- Aggression is expressed by bunting or striking a challenger with the head
What breed of cattle are generally more excitable?
Bos indicus cattle are generally more excitable than the European Bos taurus breeds
Leadership
Patterns of leadership during grazing movements
- High-ranking animals (not always the most dominant) TEND to lead; does not have control over herd direction, if a change of flight direction is caused it will run forward back to the front
- Medium ranks tend to follow
- Low-ranking animals tend to be independent
- Cattle will follow the lead animal quietly
How many individuals can a cow identify?
They can individually identify 50-70 other herd members
Grazing
- 9hrs/day
- Graze pasture that is 5 cm above the ground, distinguishing plants while grazing
- Affected by temp; in very high temps they will graze predominantly at night
- Move slowly across the pasture with muzzle close to the ground, biting and tearing off grass, which is swallowed without much chewing
- Ruminate when resting and time devoted to ruminating is approximately 3/4 of that spent in grazing
Group cohesion during grazing
- In open treeless areas, free-ranging cattle group into large mods
- The distance btw individuals are smaller than in areas with sparse to moderate tree and shrub cover
- Mob is more tightly clumped in open areas which affects the grazing pattern
What does the amount of time that cattle spend resting depend on?
- Environmental conditions
- Time spent ruminating and grazing
- Breed
When will cattle choose non-habitual resting sites?
If the preferred ones are close to the noise or disturbance
What are 9 maintenance behaviours involved in the herd’s day?
- standing
- walking
- lying
- feeding
- drinking
- self-grooming
- allo-grooming
- agnostic behaviour
- ruminating
As a cow reaches estrus, what happens to the bull?
The bull becomes very excited and follows her closely (tailgating), licking and smelling her external genitalia and often exhibiting flehmen
What are pre-copulatory patterns performed by the bull?
Pawing the ground and snorting, chin resting just before mounting and then copulation
- Copulation is short (seconds) compared with horses and pigs (minutes)
What animals are mating the most?
The most dominant animals
- social ranking of bulls influences sexual activity
As female cows become sexually receptive, what might they do?
They may mount of may be mounted by other cows, sniff males or become involved in mock ficking
- cows are receptive for ~1 day
What is the level of sexual behaviour displayed determined by?
Genetics, environmental factors, physiological factors, health and previous experience
- bulls of dairy breeds are generally more sexually active than those of the beef breeds
- new herd members attract greater sexual attention
How soon before estrus does a bull detect it?
The bull detects about 2 days before estrus and remains in the cow’s general vicinity
What is the period of sexual receptivity (mounting behaviour)?
Ranges from 1-18 hrs with the average being about 4.4 hours
Why may bulls who are used for artificial insemination or hand-breeding have poor semen quality or poor reproductive behaviour?
Lack of stimulatory effects otherwise provided by a prolonged courtship
When does suckling begin?
- 2-5 hrs after birth and the mother must be standing
- Heifers that had a difficult birth take longer to stand
- The calf vigorously butts the mother’s udder with its head while suckling to get the oxytocin flowing
Why does the mother lick her calf?
To stimulate breathing, circulation, urination and defecation
Are cows hiders or followers?
Hider species so the young are hidden near the birth site after birth and the afterbirth is eaten (bc it could attract predators)
- Within the first week of life the calf beings to follow the cow
- The distance maintained btw the cow and calf increases steadily with time after calving (keep in contact through vocalizing)
When is teat sucking by the calf the most intense?
Soon after it stands up
- common for suckling to occur first from a front teat
When do ‘nurseries’ form?
- In the period before calves themselves are grazing
- There may be ‘guard’ cows left in charge and observations are reported from cows under extensive rangeland conditions
- For periods of the day, groups of calves will be found lying together for much of the day while cows are grazing
Is maternal behaviour highly heritable in cattle?
The heritability of maternal behaviour is low in cattle so it is difficult for farmers to select for good mothering ability in bloodlines
- Contact btw the cow and her calf for a period as brief as 5 mins post-partum results in a strong specific maternal bond
What 3 senses are involved in cow-calf identification?
Vision, olfactory, and vocal sense
- Cows will grow their calves ‘labelling’ them as their own
How long does it take for the calf to stand? The heifer?
- Calves: ~45 mins after birth, suckling 2-5 hrs later
- Heifer: ~1 min but longer if it’s her first calf
What are 3 abnormal cattle behaviours?
- Mis-mothering
- Buller-Steer Syndrome
- Abnormal oral behaviours (E.g. tongue rolling)
