Provision of additional walls in the resting area the effects on. resting behaviour and social interactions in goats

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1 Provision of additional walls in the resting area the effects on resting behaviour and social interactions in goats Applied Animal Behaviour Science 1, -0 1

2 Provision of additional walls in the resting area the effects on resting behaviour and social interactions in goats REBECCA EHRLENBRUCH, GRETE HELEN MEISFJORD JØRGENSEN, INGER LISE ANDERSEN AND KNUT EGIL BØE Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, P.O. Box 00, 1 Ås, Norway Corresponding author: Rebecca Ehrlenbruch, ( rebecca.ehrlenbruch@umb.no telephone: + 0; fax: + 1) 1 1 Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of providing extra walls, in addition to the already existing pen walls, in the resting area on resting behaviour and social interactions in goats. Twenty-four dehorned dairy goats (seven weeks pregnant) were distributed into six groups with four goats in each group. The groups were systematically rotated between six pens; five experimental pens with additional walls and one control. The experimental pens were equipped with wooden walls with the following configurations: parallel wall (PAR), cross walls (CRO), perpendicular wall (PER), cubicles (CUB) and three walls (THR). Each pen had a total area of 1. m /goat with a separate activity and resting area of equal size (0. m /goat). For each treatment the goats were given three days to get accustomed to the treatments

3 before they were video recorded for hours. Resting behaviour and general activity were observed using instantaneous sampling with min intervals in the entire h period, whereas social interactions were continuously scored for hours between 0.00 and 1.00 hours Except from the PER treatment (P<0.0), the goats were resting more frequently against walls in pens with any additional walls than in the control pen. The additional walls did not have any significant effects on the goats total resting time, synchronization of resting, time spent resting in the activity area or resting in body contact. Furthermore, additional walls in the resting area had no significant effects on the goats social interactions. In conclusion, the goats preference to rest against a wall was better met in pens with addition walls compared to in the control pen (CON), but the design of the additional walls needs further investigation in order to optimize the goats use of the resting area. 1 1 Keywords: goat; resting behaviour; walls; partitions Introduction Most animals have an inelastic demand to rest (Jensen et al., 00). Several researches have demonstrated that the size of the resting area has a great impact on total lying time, synchronization of resting behaviour, aggressive interactions and growth (e. g. Nielsen et al., 1; Mogensen et al., 1; Bøe et al., 00; Andersen and Bøe, 00).

4 Intensive animal husbandry does quite often not supply enough space for simultaneous resting. Often the production systems have a high animal density which leads to a higher competition for lying space and a reduced resting time for some individuals (Fregonesi et al., 00). Next after feed, Marsden and Wood-Gush (1) found that limited lying space caused most of the displacements in sheep. In a social group, some animals may be able to monopolize attractive lying space and this forces subordinate animals to rest in less attractive areas such as the activity- and dunging area where often no litter is provided (Andersen and Bøe, 00). Animals do not only compete for resting space per se, but also for an attractive lying space. Most farm animals have a preference to rest close to a wall (cattle: Stricklin et al., 1; sheep: Marsden and Wood-Gush, 1; Færevik et al., 00; Bøe et al., 00; goat: Andersen and Bøe, 00; domestic fowl: Cornetto and Estevez, 001). This may be due to increased comfort, but this can also be explained as an anti-predator strategy where they feel safer close to a wall than in an open area (e. g. Cornetto and Estevez, 001). It has also been speculated that this distribution of animals along the wall perimeter reflect individuals trying to maximize distance between each other within the limited space of the captive environment (Stricklin et al., 1). Installing additional walls is both a way to increase the perimeter length of a pen as well as artificially increasing visual distance between individuals when available space is limited. Additional walls with different configurations in the resting area for sheep did not succeed in increasing resting time or resting synchrony, and did not affect the aggression level (Jørgensen et al., 00a). Andersen and Bøe (00) found that goats rested in body contact less than % of the resting observations, and this was not influenced by the size of the resting area. When the goats were offered a larger resting area (1.0 m /goat) they only spent around % of the resting observations lying in body

5 contact with another individual. This is much lower than in sheep that rest in body contact around 0% of the resting observations with the same size of the resting area (Bøe et al., 00). The aim of the present experiment was to investigate the effects of providing additional walls in the resting area on the resting behaviour and social interactions in goats. We predicted that the additional walls would meet the goats preference to rest against a wall and limit body contact with other goats while resting. In addition, we predicted that installing additional walls in the resting area would decrease the competition to rest with wall support. 1. Materials and methods Experimental set up The experimental set up was equal to the one used by Jørgensen et al. (00a). Six groups of four goats where systematically rotated in a Latin Square design between six equally sized experimental pens, where five of them had different configurations of additional walls in the resting area while one pen was kept as control without additional walls (CON) (Figure 1). For each treatment, all groups and pens were video recorded for a period of hours, after an initial three day habituation period. (Figure 1 here).. Experimental pens and additional wall configurations

6 1 1 The experiment was conducted in an insulated building with mechanical ventilation, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences for weeks in October and November 00. We used the same pens as in the study of Jørgensen et al. (00a). Each pen had a total area.0 m (.0 x.0 m), giving 1. m /goat, which meets the European regulations for organic farming (Council Regulation (EC) No. /1). The pens were divided in two; one resting area with solid wooden floor elevated cm from the ground and one activity/dunging area with concrete floor, each measuring 1. x.0 m (giving 0. m /goat) (Figure ). A grid of wooden beams (approx..0 cm high and 1.0 cm openings between beams) was placed on the floor in the activity area (dunging area) to make this area less attractive as resting area. Along the length of the front pen wall (activity/dunging area) there was a horizontal feed opening (.0 m, post and rail design), which gave 0. m of feeding space per goat. 1 1 (Figure here) The experimental treatments had the following configurations of additional walls (Figure 1): parallel wall (PAR), cross walls (CRO), perpendicular wall (PER), cubicles (CUB) and three walls (THR). The parallel wall and perpendicular wall was 1.0 m high and 0. m wide, cross wall was 1.0 m high and 0.0 m wide, each additional wall in the cubicle pen was 1.0 m high and 0. m wide with 0.0 m between each cubicle, and the pen with the three walls had one wall (on the opposite side of feed barrier) on 1.0 x 0.0 m and two walls on 1.0 x 0.0 m. All additional walls were made of solid wood.

7 .. Animals and feeding A total of healthy, dehorned and pregnant, Norwegian dairy goats were weighed and randomly divided into groups of four animals (mean weight ± SE;. kg ± 1. kg; mean age:. ± 0. years). At the start of the experimental period, the goats were on average seven weeks pregnant. All goats were individually marked across their back (1-) using a marker spray for animals (Jet Mark, Os Husdyrmerkefabrikk, Norway). The goats were fed twice a day, in the morning between 0.00 and 0.00 hours and in the afternoon between 1.00 and 1.00 hours. Good quality hay was offered ad libitum, and the goats had free access to water from buckets placed in the feeding trough in front of the pen. Once a day hay residuals were removed and goats were fed a standard concentrate pellet diet (approximately 0. kg per goat) before fresh hay was administered. In addition to this, the goats had free access to mineral blocks. Twice a day, faeces and urine was removed from the resting area and a thin layer of sawdust was administered to ensure a dry and non-slippery surface. The activity/dunging area was cleaned out twice a week so that the level of faeces always was kept below the wooden grids Behavioural observations 0 1 A wide angle video camera (Netdale/QMD C-C/ colour CCTV) was suspended above each pen and directly connected to a computer using the MSH video system ( We recorded the goats behaviour for hours, starting at morning feeding (0.00 hours) on the fourth day in each pen treatment.

8 .. 1. Resting behaviour and general activity Resting behaviours and general activities were scored using instantaneous sampling method every minutes for hours using the following ethogram: - Resting against the original pen wall* - Resting against the additional wall* - Resting in the resting area without any contact with the pen or the additional walls - Resting in the activity area * In order to determine if goats were resting against a wall or just accidently in contact with it, we defined resting in contact when the goat was resting in physical contact with at least its front half of the body (neck to belly). If the goat was resting with its hind half of the body in contact with the wall, the behaviour was categorized in relation to how much of the body was in physical contact with the wall. A goat resting with its shoulder in contact with an original wall but also with its hindquarters in contact with an additional wall was scored as resting against the original pen wall In addition to this, we recorded whether a goat was resting in body contact (with one or several goats) or without any physical contact with another goat. All observations of resting behaviours were later summed to give the percent of total observations resting, and for each observation, we also calculated number of goats that were resting simultaneously. When all four goats in the same pen were resting at the same time, they were resting synchrony.

9 ... Social interactions Social interactions were scored continuously during six hours between 0.00 and 1.00 hours. Which individuals who performed or received an agonistic behaviour was also recorded. The following ethogram of mutually exclusive behaviours was used: Butting with the head against the head or body of another goat - Chasing (moving quickly after) another goat - Pushing (push away another goat with its head or body) - Displacing (a goat physically forcing another goat to leave its resting position by pushing or butting) - Withdrawing (a goat runs away from another goat after a social interaction) Numbers of butting, chasing, pushing and displacing were summarized into the term aggressive behaviours Statistical analysis 0 1 To analyze the effects of the different treatments on resting behaviour and social interactions we used a mixed model of analysis of variance in the statistical program SAS (SAS institute Inc, 1), with wall configuration (six different treatments) and group (1 to ) as class variables. Group was specified as a random effect (Hatcher and

10 Stephanski, 1). The Least squares means test was used to investigate differences between means. Mean values per group were used as statistical unit.. Results. 1. Resting behaviour There were no differences between pen treatments in total resting time (from. to.% of total observations, Table 1). Resting synchrony was similar in all treatments (from. % to. % of total observations, Table 1). Some goats were occasionally resting in the activity area, but there was no effect of treatment (Table 1). The goats rarely rested in body contact; on average. % of the observation resting (range:.-1. % obs. resting) in body contact with one goat, and even more seldom in body contact with more than one goat (Table 1). There was no significant difference between groups with respect to total resting time, synchrony in resting, resting in the activity area, and resting in body contact with one or several goats Resting against additional walls Except for the PER-treatment (perpendicular wall), the goats spent more time (% of observations resting) resting against the original pen wall in the control pen than in all the other pens (Table 1). The additional walls were most used in the cubicle treatment (Table 1) and here the goats were mostly lying inside the cubicles with their heads towards the pen wall. The perpendicular (PER) walls appeared to be the least preferred. Except from the PER configuration, the goats were resting more (% of obs.

11 resting) with wall support (pen wall + additional wall) in the experimental pens compared to the control pen (Table 1). Resting against the pen wall and the additional wall did not differ significantly between groups. Between the goats within group there was large difference in how much each goat was resting with wall support (range 1-0 % of obs. resting). Some goats were resting more against the pen wall and correspondingly less against the additional wall, and vice versa for the other goats. In every group there was one goat that was resting more in the activity area than the other group members, and typically this goat was resting with least wall support. 1 (Table 1 here) Social interactions Displacements from the resting area were relatively infrequent (mean 0. per goat/ h) and there was no effect on treatment (Table 1). Aggressive behaviours occurred on average. per goat, but there was no effect of treatment (Table 1). There were no significant differences between groups in amount of aggressive behaviours or displacements in the resting area. 1. Discussion Similar to what was found in sheep (Jørgensen et al., 00a), the present experiment showed that additional walls in the resting area had no effects on the goats total

12 resting time, synchrony of resting behaviour, time spent resting in the activity area or resting in body contact. Furthermore, the additional walls in the resting area did not succeed in reducing aggressive interactions. The biggest difference between the present study and the one in sheep (Jørgensen et al., 00a), was the percentage of observations resting against the additional wall in the pen with cubicles (goat:. % vs. sheep:. %) and three walls (goat:. % vs. sheep:. %). Sheep rested more in the activity area in the pen treatment with cubicles than goats. This may suggest that sheep do not like cubicles and try to avoid them, whereas this was the most preferred configuration of additional walls for goats During day time, female mountain goats spend around 0 % of their time resting and 0 % at dusk (Hamel and Côté, 00). In this experiment, the goats rested on average. % of total observations, which is close to what Andersen and Bøe (00) found in goats with the same sized pen- and resting area (.1% of tot. obs.) Generally, animals tend to have synchronized resting- and activity pattern (Rook and Penning, ). The synchronization of resting was higher in this experiment (mean ± SE for all groups: 1. ± 1.% of tot. obs.) than what we have previously found in goats (Andersen and Bøe, 00). In the previous experiment the goats rested simultaneously only in. % of total observations with a resting area of 0. m /goat and 1.1 % of total observations with a resting area of 1.0 m per goat. When using a two-level resting area the goats tended to reduce the synchrony in resting and this may explain some of the differences in simultaneous resting behaviour between these two studies. 1

13 1 The goats used the additional walls to a large extent and this increased the percentage of resting with wall support in the experimental pens compared to the control pen (except from the perpendicular wall). These results show that goats have a preference to rest against a wall, which is in accordance with previous studies on other farm animals (cattle: Stricklin et al., 1; sheep: Marsden and Wood-Gush, 1; Færevik et al., 00; Bøe et al., 00; fowl: Cornetto and Estevez, 001). Some configurations demand more space than others, especially the CRO and the THR treatment. Goats in these two pen treatments had limited opportunities to vary their resting positions because the configuration only allowed them to rest in one or two specific directions and we observed that some goats were able to block other goats out from the resting area by their resting position Additional wall is an artificial way to increase the distance between individuals and to keep potential opponents out of visual contact. However, both in this study and in the sheep experiment (Jørgensen et al., 00a), physical barriers in the resting area did not appear to reduce aggression It is not clear if the results from this study can be extrapolated to larger groups. When increasing the group size, but maintaining the space allowance per individual, the perimeter length will actually decrease (Stricklin et al., 1; Jørgensen et al., 00b). Hence, additional walls may in fact have a more distinct effect in larger group sizes. Increasing the total space allowance will obviously also increase the perimeter length (Bøe et al., 00), but also make it possible to install additional walls with less opportunities to block others from resting. However, it is unlikely that a larger resting area will be used under commercial conditions. 1

14 In conclusion, the goats rested more against walls in pens with additional walls in the resting area than in the control pen. These results suggest that installing additional walls in the resting area would meet the goats preference for wall support when resting, but with no consequences for aggression or resting pattern. Acknowledgements 1 The experiment was financially supported by grants from the Norwegian Research Council, Agricultural Agreement Research Fund and Foundation for Research Levy on Agricultural Products. The authors would like to thank Agnes Klouman and her colleagues for feeding and taking care of the goats through the experimental period. 1 1

15 References Andersen, I. L., Bøe, K. E., 00. Resting pattern and social interactions in goats impact of size and organization of lying space. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., -. Bøe, K. E., Berg, S. Andersen, I. L., 00. Resting behaviour and displacements in ewes effects of reduced lying space and pen shape. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., -. Cornetto, T. L., Estevez, I., 001. Influence of vertical panels on the use of space by domestic fowl. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 1, Fregonesi, J. A., Tucker, C. B., Weary, D. M., 00. Overstocking reduces lying time in dairy cows. J. Dairy Sci. 0, Færevik, G., Andersen, I. L., Bøe, K. E., 00. Preferences of sheep for different types of pen flooring. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 0, Hamel, S., Côté, S. D., 00. Trade-offs in activity budget in an alpine ungulate: Contrasting lactating and non lactating females. Anim. Behav., Hatcher, L., Stepanski, E. J., 1. A step-by-step approach to using the SAS System for univariate and multivariate statistics, Cary, NC: SAS Institute Inc, pp. 1

16 Jensen, M. B., Pedersen, L. J., Munksgaard, L., 00. The effect of reward duration on demand functions for rest in dairy heifers and lying requirements as measured by demand functions. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 0, 0-1. Jørgensen, G. H. M., Andersen, I. L., Bøe, K. E., 00a. The effect of different pen partition configurations on the behaviour of sheep. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., -0. Jørgensen, G. H. M., Andersen, I. L., Berg, S., Bøe, K. E., 00b. Feeding, resting and social behaviour in ewes housed in two different group sizes. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., Marsden, M. D., Wood-Gush, D. G. M., 1. The use of space by group-housed sheep. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 1, Mogensen, L., Nielsen, L. H., Hindhede, J., Sørensen, J. T., Krohn,C. C., 1. Effect of space allowance in deep bedding systems on resting behaviour, production and health of dairy heifers. Acta Agric. Scand. Sect. A-Anim. Sci., Nielsen, L. H., Mogensen, L., Krohn, C., Hindhede, J., Sørensen, J. T., 1. Resting and social behaviour of dairy heifers housed in slatted floor pens with different sized bedded lying areas. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 0-1. Rook, A. J., Penning, P. D.,. Synchronization of eating, ruminating and idling activity by grazing sheep. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci.,

17 SAS Institute Inc., 1. SAS/STAT User s guide, Version, Fourth edition, Volume 1, Cary, NC: SAS Institute Inc., 1. 0 pp. Stricklin, W. R., Graves, H. B., Wilson, L. L., 1. Some theoretical and observed relationships of fixed and portable spacing behavior in animals. Appl. Anim. Ethol., Stricklin, W. R., Zhou, J. Z., Gonyou, H. W., 1. Selfish animats and robot ethology: using artificial animals to investigate social and spatial behaviour. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., Stricklin, W.R., de Bourcier, P., Zhou, J. Z., Gonyou, H. W., 1. Artificial pigs in space: Using artificial intelligence and artificial life techniques to design animal housing. J. Anim. Sci.,

18 Table Table 1. Mean ± SE % of total observations or observations resting on resting behaviour, numbers of displacements from the resting area and total number of aggressive behaviours for all pen treatments. Behaviours Control (CON) Parallel wall (PAR) Cross walls (CRO) Perpendicular wall (PER) Cubicles (CUB) Three walls (THR) F, P-value Total resting time (% of total obs.). ±.. ±.0. ±.1.1 ± 1.. ±..1 ±. 0. ns All goats resting simultaneously (% of total obs.). ±.. ±. 1. ±.. ± 1.. ±..0 ±. 0. ns Resting in the activity area (% of obs. resting). ±. 1. ±.. ±.0. ±.. ±. 1. ±. 0. ns Resting against a pen wall (% of obs. resting) 1. ±. a. ±. b 1. ±. be. ±. ae.0 ±. c 0. ±.1 d. < Resting against additional walls (% of obs. resting) -. ±. a. ±. a 1.0 ±. b. ±. c. ±.0 d 1. < Resting in the resting area with wall support (% of obs. resting) Resting in resting area without wall support (% of obs. resting) Resting in body contact with one goat (% of obs. resting) Resting in body contact with more than one goat (% of obs. resting) 1. ±. a.0 ±. b. ±.1 b 0. ±. ab 0. ±.0 b. ±.1 b. < ±. a 1. ± 0. b 0. ± 0. b. ±. cd. ± 1.0 bd. ± 1. bd. < ±.0. ±.. ± ±.. ±.0. ±.0 0. ns 0. ± ± ± ± ± ± ns No. of displacements from the resting area per goat/ h 0. ± ± ± ± ± ± ns No. of aggressive behaviours f per goat/ h. ± 1.. ± 0.. ±.. ±.. ± 1.. ± ns ns = not significant. Different letters show significant differences between pen treatments. f Aggressive behaviours include butting, chasing, pushing and displacements from the resting area. 1

19 Legend to figures Figure 1. The control pen and five treatment pens, with their different configuration of the additional walls installed in the resting area. 1: control pen, : horizontal wall, : cross wall, : perpendicular wall, : cubicles, : three walls. Figure. The experimental pen with resting area (grey), feed barrier and activity area with wooden grids on the floor

20 Control (CON) Parallel wall (PAR) Cross wall (CRO) Perpendicular wall (PER) Cubicles (CUB) Three walls (THR) Figure 1 0

21 1.00m.00m1.0mRestingarea(0.mperanimal)FeedbarrierActivity/dungingarea Figure