A methodological approach to compare continuous and instantaneous sampling and two methods to deal with animals out of sight on dairy cattle behavior and interaction with their calf in the first hours post-partum
Articolo
Data di Pubblicazione:
2024
Citazione:
A methodological approach to compare continuous and instantaneous sampling and two methods to deal with animals out of sight on dairy cattle behavior and interaction with their calf in the first hours post-partum / C. Manfrè, M. Battini, A. Simonetto, B. Contiero, L. Serva, S. Mattiello, S. Ntalampiras, S. Normando, M. Brscic. - In: FRONTIERS IN VETERINARY SCIENCE. - ISSN 2297-1769. - 11:(2024), pp. 1360239.1-1360239.13. [10.3389/fvets.2024.1360239]
Abstract:
Animal behavior can provide useful information about animal welfare, but
methods and tools used to gather behavioral data and data treatment can
influence the results. Therefore, this study was carried out on dairy cow (Bos
taurus) behavior and interaction with calves early post-partum aiming at
comparing two sampling rules, namely continuous and instantaneous sampling
at scan intervals of 30 s, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10 min, and of two methods to deal with
out of sight animals. The study was based on three assumptions: (1) continuous
sampling provides the most complete and accurate data, allowing the
observation of seldom behaviors and short events; (2) instantaneous sampling
can provide accurate measurements of frequency and duration, especially at
short scan intervals; (3) differences in behavioral results may occur depending
on whether a correction for time out of sight is applied or not. Thus, 10 dams
were observed from videos in the 2 h post-parturition. Ruminating, stereotypies,
calf-biting and calf-butting were not recorded during the observation period.
Other behaviors were observed only with continuous sampling or with
continuous and instantaneous at 30-s scan intervals. The recoding of several
behaviors was less accurate when applying longer scan intervals. Data from
continuous and instantaneous sampling at 30-s scan intervals were compared
with Wilcoxon test. Results showed no significant differences for posture,
position in the pen and all behaviors (p > 0.05) except vocalizing (p = 0.003). The
same test did not highlight significant differences due to method of dealing with
out of sight for both sampling rules (p > 0.05). Correlation between continuous
and instantaneous sampling were prevalently high at 30-s intervals and they
decreased as the length of scan intervals increased for most behaviors. Results
confirmed the first two assumptions suggesting that continuous sampling is
more accurate, in particular for short and rare behaviors, and caution against
the suitability of dam behavioral data collected using instantaneous sampling
at scan intervals of minutes. The third assumption was not proven by this study.
Results should be considered in light of the development of new technologies
that relies on data acquired by sensors and imaging to monitor cow-calf welfare
and behavior post-parturition.
Tipologia IRIS:
01 - Articolo su periodico
Keywords:
animal welfare; dairy cattle; dam-calf bond; maternal behavior; social cognition; vocalization
Elenco autori:
C. Manfrè, M. Battini, A. Simonetto, B. Contiero, L. Serva, S. Mattiello, S. Ntalampiras, S. Normando, M. Brscic
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