Beef Cattle Behaviour Flashcards
Cattle vision
Pano = 330
Bino = 25-50
Slit shape pupils
Weak eye muscles = inability to focus quickly
What wavelengths can cattle distinguish? They have poor…
Long (yellow, orange, red)
Poor depth perception
What can the olfaction system detect? Important in what?
Pheromones
Important for reproduction and feed selection
How many tastebuds do cattle have? What tastes can they differentiate
30000
Differentiate acid, bitter, salt and sweet
Cattle hearing
Ears very sensitive
Can be calmed with soothing music or stressed by loud noises
Dairy breeds more sensitive to sound
Ways to calm cattle? Where do they prefer to allogroom
Calm them by playing music, scratching under the neck and behind the ears (difficult to access)
Prefer to allogroom in the neck area
Dominance hierarchies in beef
In steers, form soon after weaning
Stable / linear or triangular
High ranking cattle have fewer meals but spend more time eating
How are dominance hierarchies formed in beef
May only take a gesture or threat if one animal is clearly larger, healthier and stronger
Aggressive bull will turn perpendicular to challenger to display length and height
Then bunts or strikes challenger with head
Examples of stress in beef related to social behaviours
Isolation and crowding
Regrouping (breaks existing bonds)
Transportation and human handling
Wind, dust, heat, cold, nutrition affect stress
Temperament in cattle (bos indicus vs taurus)
Bos indicus generally more excitable breeds
Hair whorls on face = reactive cattle?
Patterns of leadership during grazing in cattle
High ranking (not necessarily most dominant; most experienced?) tend to lead, does not have control over direction
Medium ranks tend to follow
Low ranks = independent
How many individuals can cattle identify
50-70
How much time is spent grazing? What affects this? How much time is spent ruminating?
Grazing = 9h/day affected by temperature (high=graze at night)
Ruminating = three quarters of time spent grazing
How does grazing differ in open areas vs treed areas
Open = form large mobs, clumped, less distance between individuals
What affects the amount of time spent resting?
Environmental conditions, time spent ruminating and grazing, and breed
Avoid sources of noise and disturbance even if near habitual resting site