Housing and personality effects on judgement and attention biases in dairy cows

Louise Kremer,Laura E Webb,Eddie A M Bokkers,Sabine K Schnabel,Bas Engel,Cornelis G Van Reenen,Jacinta D Bus,Jozef T N Van Der Werf

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-01843-w

Louise Kremer, Laura E Webb + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01843-w

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Journal: Scientific Reports	Publication Date: Nov 26, 2021
Citations: 19	License type: open-access

Affiliation: Wageningen University & Research

Abstract

Affective states can be inferred from responses to ambiguous and threatening stimuli, using Judgement Bias Tasks (JBTs) and Attention Bias Tasks (ABTs). We investigated the separate and interactive effects of personality and housing conditions on dairy cattle affective states. We assessed personality in 48 heifers using Open-Field, Novel-Object and Runway tests. Personality effects on responses to the JBT and to the ABT were examined when heifers were housed under reference conditions. Heifers were subsequently housed under positive or negative conditions, and housing effects on animal responses in both tasks were investigated while controlling for personality. A Principal Component Analysis revealed three personality traits labelled Activity, Fearfulness and Sociability. Under reference conditions, personality influenced heifers’ responses to the JBT and to the ABT, therefore questioning the tasks’ generalizability across individuals. Against expectations, housing did not influence responses to the JBT and heifers in the negative conditions looked at the threat later than heifers in the positive or reference conditions. More research is warranted to confirm the validity and the repeatability of the JBT and of the ABT as appropriate measures of affective states in dairy cows.

Highlights

Behavioural measures Number of locomotion bouts in OF and Novel Object (NO) Time spent in locomotion in OF and NO Time spent in contact with walls/floor in OF and NO Time spent in contact with NO Latency to touch NO Time spent within 2 m from the group in RW Eigenvalue
Heifers scoring high on RC1 explored and walked the most in the arena. Those scoring high on RC2 spent the most time in contact with the Novel Object (NO) and were the fastest to reach the NO for the first time
We investigated the effects of cattle personality on judgement and attention processes while heifers were kept in similar housing conditions to investigate personality-dependent cognitive biases

Summary

Introduction

Behavioural measures Number of locomotion bouts in OF and NO Time spent in locomotion in OF and NO Time spent in contact with walls/floor in OF and NO Time spent in contact with NO Latency to touch NO Time spent within 2 m from the group in RW Eigenvalue. Ross and c olleagues[34] reported that the level of enrichment in the housing conditions of hens influenced the judgement bias responses of individuals characterised as exploratory— i.e. hens approaching a novel object relatively fast—but not the responses of individuals characterised as nonexploratory. Depending on their personality, certain sub-populations of animals may be more sensitive than others to specific housing conditions. (1) The effect of personality traits on judgement and attention biases in dairy heifers kept under reference housing conditions (i.e. at baseline) to minimize variations in individual affective background

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