Indiscriminate voiding of excreta by cattle contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and soil and water contamination1,2. Emissions are higher in animal-friendly husbandry offering cattle more space2 - a trade-off we call the 'climate killer conundrum'. Voiding in a specific location (latrine) would help resolve this dilemma by allowing ready capture and treatment of excreta under more spacious farming conditions. For urination, toileting requires self-control and coordination of a complex chain of behaviors including awareness of bladder fullness, overriding of excretory reflexes, selection of a latrine and intentional relaxation of the external urethral sphincter3. Attempts to train toileting in cattle have so far been only partly successful4-6, even though their excretion and associated neurophysiological control are similar to those in species capable of toileting3. Similarly, very young infants have been considered incapable of self-initiated voiding, but they can be taught with extensive training7. Using a backward chaining, reward-based training procedure, we here show that cattle can control their micturition reflex and use a latrine for urination. Such self-control provides evidence that animals can learn to respond to and reveal internal experiences via appropriately trained operant behaviors, thereby providing another way to explore their subjective states.

Can we toilet train cattle? Would we want to? The answer to both of these questions is yes — and doing so could help us address issues of water contamination and climate change. Cattle urine is high in nitrogen, and this contributes to a range of environmental problems.

Typically, cattle urinate and defecate with little or no control over time and place. The resulting excreta contributes to a range of adverse effects on the environment and the animals themselves. These adverse effects could be substantially ameliorated if livestock could be toilet trained. Toilet training requires an animal to suppress impending voiding (a reflexive-like behavior), move to a latrine (voluntary behavior) and reinitiate voiding. Here, we review the neurophysiological processes and learning mechanisms regulating toileting. The suppression and initiation of voiding occur primarily via the coordinated activity of smooth and striated anal and urinary sphincter muscles. The autonomic and somatic nervous systems, along with central processes, regulate these muscles. In several mammalian species, voluntary control of the sphincters has been demonstrated using classical and/or operant conditioning. In this review, we demonstrate that the neurophysiological and behavioral regulation of voiding in cattle is likely to be similarly conditionable. The management of excreta deposition in cattle could have major benefits for reducing livestock greenhouse gas emissions and improving animal health/welfare.

Untrained cattle do not defecate or urinate in defined locations. The toilet training of cattle would allow urine and faeces to be separated and stored, reducing climate-damaging emissions and improving animal health. In a proof-of-concept study, we evaluated a novel protocol for toilet training in cattle. Five heifer calves (and yoked controls) were trained in the voluntary (operant) behaviours of a toileting chain. Then, reflexive urinating responses were incorporated into the chain, with toileting signalled by a tactile (vibratory) stimulus. On 95% of occasions, the calves inhibited/interrupted urination when receiving the stimulus, and on 65% of these occasions, reinitiated urination in the latrine. Furthermore, during 63% of urinations in the latrine, the calves oriented to the reward location before any food was delivered, providing additional evidence that calves can be successfully toilet trained with food rewards. Yoked controls failed to learn most of the operant elements and all the reflexive responses of toilet training. The results show that reflexive behaviours can be incorporated into voluntary toileting sequences with cattle and extend the range of species that can be toilet trained. Future refinement of the protocol to allow training under practical farm conditions offers the potential to mitigate climate damage and improve animal health.

This work investigated the differences in the reactivity of Sarda (primiparous n=18, multiparous n=17) and Dorset (multiparous n=8) breeds of sheep and their singleton lambs to two challenging test situations involving a mother-lamb partial separation test and an isolation test. Non-parametric analysis used single behavioural variables and fear scores to evaluate the effect of parity, sex of lambs, and the association between mother-lamb behaviour. Amongst ewes, Dorset were characterised by a more calm temperament while Sarda (especially primiparous ewes) were more active in their response to challenge (i.e. more attempts to escape). As with their dams, lambs reflected to a certain extent this divergence and overall during isolation lamb fear score was on average significantly higher than dams. Correlations between measures of behavioural reactivity across tests were carried out to search for predictive measures of fear. A very strong correlation emerged linking vocalisation to locomotor activity. Vocalisation could be a good candidate as predictor factor of an active reaction of sheep to a fearful.situation. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Schemes for the assessment of farm animal welfare and assurance of welfare standards have proliferated in recent years. An acknowledged short-coming has been the lack of impact of these schemes on the welfare standards achieved on farm due in part to sociological factors concerning their implementation. Here we propose the concept of welfare performance based on a broad set of performance attributes of an enterprise and describe a tool based on risk assessment and benchmarking methods for measuring and managing welfare performance. The tool termed the Unified Field Index is presented in a general form comprising three modules addressing animal, resource, and management factors. Domains within these modules accommodate the principle conceptual perspectives for welfare assessment: biological functioning; emotional states; and naturalness. Pan-enterprise analysis in any livestock sector could be used to benchmark welfare performance of individual enterprises and also provide statistics of welfare performance for the livestock sector. An advantage of this concept of welfare performance is its use of continuous scales of measurement rather than traditional pass/fail measures. Through the feedback provided via benchmarking, the tool should help farmers better engage in on-going improvement of farm practices that affect animal welfare.

There is widespread contact with animals throughout human society, for example, in the production of food, clothing, and pharmaceuticals; for companionship and security; in research and education; in religious activities; or for sports and entertainment.

A hallmark of modern animal welfare legislation is the incorporation of positive duties of care based on principles broadly known as the ‘five freedoms’. The duties create a legal obligation on animal caregivers to provide for the needs of animals in their care, one of which is the "opportunity to display normal patterns of behaviour". The freedoms, including the opportunity to exhibit "normal" behaviour, are all premised on the inclusion of human involvement in animal care. Consequently it would be inconsistent for the judiciary to define “normal”, in a manner that excludes the human caregiver or interpret “normal” behaviour of domesticated animals solely by reference to the animals “wild” counterparts. Contemporary reality clearly indicates that the legislative definition of “normal” behaviour for the purposes of animal welfare law must be based on legal and scientific constructs that give significant weight and consideration to the animal’s ability to adapt, and to the individual animal’s past and present environment which includes the presence and role of the human caregiver.

Broiler chickens are the most numerous terrestrial farmed animals on earth. These birds can suffer a range of pathologies which result in lameness, and one technique for assessing the impact of lameness on the individual bird, and on the flock has been gait scoring. This paper describes a study where the results of the same training programme for validated gait scoring are compared for groups of assessors in Thailand, Brazil and New Zealand. A uniform course of training carried out in the classroom, through video assessment and through on-farm training was carried out in the countries named, a total of 95 persons being trained overall. A measure of agreement with the reference scale for the assessors' numerical responses was carried out using a Cohen's Kappa test, and the results indicated significant differences in the 'origin position' ie the view taken by the assessors of the impact of lameness on the bird before training had taken place, but a high degree of consistency in the response to training. The study demonstrated that gait scoring can be learned by assessors from different geographical and social backgrounds, and that the 'rate of learning' - the improvement in performance in relation to a standard, was similar between the countries studied. The 'origin' and 'final' position of the assessors pre- and post-training, from the different countries in relation to the reference standard is discussed.

The effect of feeding and handling on the response of young cattle to humans was investigated using 40 Danish Friesian calves removed from their dam immediately after birth. From day 3 to 17 of age calves were either: fed by humans and handled (stroking); fed by humans but not handled; fed without visual contact with humans and handled; or fed without visual contact with humans and not handled (control). Observations during the handling and/or feeding treatments revealed that calves fed with a human present performed more bunting behaviour but performed less play behaviour than those handled but not fed. The approach behaviour of each calf to an unknown person was assessed at days 3, 17, 32, and 62 in both their home pen and in an arena. In the home pen, handling had no effect on latency to interact with the person, but at days 17, 32, and 62 calves fed by humans were quicker to interact with a person than those fed without a human present. When tested in the arena, no consistent significant treatment effects were found at any age in latencies to approach or interact with the person. In a third test, the approach behaviour towards a person when social companions were present was assessed. With the human present only, time spent within 1 m of the person did not differ with age or treatment (17 to 62 days). But when two other calves were present, latency to approach the person increased (p<0.05) and time spent near the person decreased (p<0.05) with age. It is concluded that feeding has a greater influence on the responses of young calves towards humans than handling. However, this appears to be limited to the location in which the feeding took place. Despite receiving no additional handling, calves that were fed without a human present readily approached and interacted with an unknown person and spent a large proportion of time near the person in the arena tests, suggesting that handling in the first 2 days after birth may be very important in the development of the subsequent interactions between humans and cattle.

Performance of nine domestic goats responding under concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules of food delivery was examined, with results analyzed in terms of the generalized matching equation. Substantial undermatching of response and time allocation ratios to obtained reinforcement ratios was evident. Post-reinforcement pause time ratios approximately matched obtained reinforcement ratios. Subtracting these times from total time allocation values yielded net time allocation ratios, which undermatched obtained reinforcement ratios to a greater degree than whole-session time allocation ratios. Slopes of regression lines relating behavioral outputs to environmental inputs characteristically were below 0.6, which is similar to previous findings in dairy cows tested under comparable conditions.

In order to create an environment in which the welfare of domestic animals is ensured, it is necessary to know which aspects of this environment are important to the animals. The generation of demand functions by means of operant conditioning procedures provides a method with which it is possible to measure quantitatively the importance of various aspects of the environment. The demand functions are generated by training animals to perform a variable amount of work (i.e. to press a lever one time, two times,... 60 times, etc.) to obtain constant amounts of a reward (e.g. food, straw bedding for rooting, sand for dust bathing, social contact, or locomotion), and to plot consumption of rewards against workload. The relationship consumption-workload indicates the importance of the reward: the steeper the curve falls off(i.e. the larger the slope), the less important the reward. As only relative changes in consumption are measured, it is possible to compare the importance of different environmental aspects with each other. In addition, since the importance of some environmental aspects depends on the presence or absence of others, we are currently modifying the method in order to take this interdependence into consideration. In the modified version consumption of two environmental features is measured simultaneously, again by varying the workload to obtain the two types of reward. The long-term goal of this research is to provide a list of environmental features, ranked according to importance, and to indicate which features are partially or totally substitutable with others.

The aim of this study was to compare cortisol concentrations in plasma (PCC) and milk (MCC) following administration of exogenous ACTH 1-24 or activation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis by a stressor (transport) in cows. Fifteen cows in midlactation were assigned to treatments with ACTH 1-24 (0.05 mg Synacthen™ iv at 1300h), transport (trucking for two 45 min periods from 1300h) or control (sampling only) in a 3x3 Latin square design. Blood samples were collected hourly from 1300-1500h and a composite milk sample was obtained at routine milking at 1515h. There was a 6-fold elevation in PCC by 60 min following both ACTH treatment and transportation. At 120 min, PCC was twofold higher in ACTH treated cows but remained at levels similar to those at 60 min in the transported animals, indicating that the adrenocortical response had been maintained during transport. Mean MCC was 12-fold greater after the transport treatment and a factor of 2 higher after ACTH treatment, compared to the control treatment (P<0.01). Values of MCC and PCC at the 120 min sampling wer e highly correlated (r = 0.80; P<0.001). This suggested that MCC may be a useful indicator of adrenocortical response to stressor s, provided samples are obtained during the period of elevated PCC.

Five sets of rising five year old Holstein-Friesian non-lactating identical twin cows were studied from February to April 1994. One member from each twin pair had been tail docked at 18 months of age while the other member had its tail intact. The animals were observed weekly at three different times of day; 7 am, 12 noon and 3 pm. At low fly levels there were no significant differences in the frequencies of either front (e.g. leg stamping) or rear (e.g. tail flicking) focused fly-induced behaviours between the two treatments. At high fly levels there were no significant differences in front focused behaviours but the docked animals performed significantly more rear focused behaviours than the non-docked cows (e.g. 96 s 34 tailflicks at 12 noon, e.05). The adrenocorticol responses to intravenous injection of 0.05mg ACTH (Synacthen, CIBA-GEIGY) or saline was assessed four times throughouttheexperiment.Theanimalswere bloodsampledattime- 1 min,50and 120minrelative tothe timeofinjectionofACTHorsaline. There were no significant differences in plasma cords01 concentrations in response to ACII-I injection between treatments. Tail docked cows had elevated levels of fly induced behaviour but did not have an altered adrenal cortex function. This suggests that behaviour is a more sensitive indicator of the effects of fly predation than adrenal response to ACTH. Sensitive physiological indicators of chronic stress need to be developed for the assessment of husbandry practices.