Abstract
Simple SummaryThe early permanent separation of mother and young in dairy production is the subject of much consumer concern. The aim of this study was to examine how early permanent separation, separation during the day only, or full-time access to their mother over two months affected goat kids, as measured by heart rate, saliva cortisol, and behavior during social isolation and exposure to a novel test situation. Our study shows that goat kids separated early permanent, separated daytime, or kept full-time with their mothers showed different responses to a challenge. However, it is difficult to say which of the treatments resulted in most fear and stress for goat kids during the tests. It seems that kids permanently separated from their mothers adapted to live in a group with other goat kids by the age of two months, while those separated daytime from their mothers demonstrated the strongest stress response. The reaction of goat kids kept full-time with mother fell between those of the other two treatments. In conclusion, the evaluation of stress responses is complicated, and our study pinpoints the importance of combining physiological with behavioral measurements.The aim of the study was to examine how early permanent separation, separation during the day only, or full-time access to the mother goat affected goat kids during social isolation with a sudden sound of a dog bark at two weeks and two months, and a novel arena test with a novel object at two months. Kids permanently separated reduced their vocalization earlier and had a higher heart rate before and after dog bark during isolation at two weeks, no effect was found on the daytime separated kids. Daytime separated kids bleated more at two weeks and decreased heart rate after dog barking at two months. Daytime separated kids showed the strongest fear reaction in the arena test, no effect was found on the permanently separated kids. Kids separated early vocalized more before novel object and showed more explorative behavior afterwards. Our study shows different responses in goat kids separated early permanent, daytime separated, or kept full-time with mother, which demonstrates the importance of if and how the mother is present, and the impact of using a wide variety of physiological and behavioral measures when evaluating stress in animal welfare research.
Highlights
There were no significant differences in heart rate during the first two minute period (Figure 1a), but separated from their mothers permanently (SEP) kids (n = 10) and DAY-SEP kids (n = 6) vocalized significantly more than NON-SEP kids (n = 6, p ≤ 0.05, Figure 1b)
There were no significant differences in heart rate during the 1b,d) there were no significant differences between ages
We suggest that an expected intense fear reaction to the novel object, caused a passive avoidance reaction in the form of behavioral inhibition
Summary
The common dairy industry practice of permanently separating mother from offspring, at an early age, has attracted increasing concern and criticism [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11] and early permanent separation has been reported as stressful for both mother goats and their kids [12,13,14,15,16].Maintaining the mother-offspring relationship is likely to have positive consequences for the welfare of the dam and goat kids [17,18]. The common dairy industry practice of permanently separating mother from offspring, at an early age, has attracted increasing concern and criticism [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11] and early permanent separation has been reported as stressful for both mother goats and their kids [12,13,14,15,16]. In a recently published comprehensive review article on cow–calf interaction [23] prolonged contact with the suckling calf did not show a clear cut reduction in saleable milk. Suckling most often had a positive effect on calf growth [23]. We have recently shown that goats, kept with their kids for sixteen hours per day, had higher milk fat, casein concentration, and curd yield compared with goats kept together with their kids for eight hours per day [24]
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