Impact of social mixing on beef and dairy cattle—A scoping review

Abstract

Beef and dairy cattle are commonly housed in homogenous groups to help facilitate management. In order to achieve homogenous groups, producers will employ social mixing (i.e., commingling). Social mixing methods differ across operations and industries due to variation in cattle, infrastructure, management, and climate. Cattle are social creatures, therefore, social mixing is a psychological stressor. Social bonds and dominance hierarchies are disrupted when individuals are removed or added to a group. Thus, since social mixing is a welfare concern, and the practice has considerable variation, a review of the literature to evaluate the extent, range, and nature of research activity assessing social mixings impact on cattle behavior, health, physiology, and productivity was warranted. Searches of CAB Abstracts, AGRIS, Scopus, and SPAC performed prior to October 2019 resulted in 21 articles (22 studies) that evaluated the effects of social mixing on cattle. Socially mixed cattle had increased activity levels, spent less time resting, and increased performance of agonistic interactions, irrespective of social mixing and cattle characteristics. The majority of studies focused on cattle behavior responses to social mixing, thus there was little conclusive evidence that productivity, feeding behavior, physiological, health responses were impacted by social mixing. Yet, few studies assessed social mixing in a setting that closely resembled either modern beef or dairy production. This scoping review examined studies of varied cattle production types, sample sizes, cattle attributes, methodological approaches, and experimental design and presents areas of cattle social mixing research with solid evidence and the main research gaps.