Does environmental enrichment consisting of brushing prepartum zebu heifers improve first-lactation behavior?

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Highlights

  • QBA of Zebu heifers treated with prepartum brushing as a positive handling.

  • On PPD 1, training improved the QTI of Zebu heifers by 93 % and 43 %, respectively.

  • The sum of the first two principal components explained 73.32 % of the variability.

  • The brushing of prepartum Zebu heifers improved their adaptation for milking system.

Abstract

To date, Qualitative Behavior Assessment (QBA) has not been used to measure the welfare of pre-partum Zebu heifers treated with practices of positive handling. The study objective was to investigate the effect of brushing as positive handling on animal behavior in the prepartum period, aside from establishing a qualitative behavior index to assess the animals’ well-being pre- and postpartum periods. Thirty-five Zebu, 21 Gyr and 14 Gyr/Holstein heifers were evaluated. Filming was performed during the prepartum period, and on postpartum day (PPD) 1, 5 and 15. The filmed material was evaluated based on the method of Qualitative Behavior Assessment (QBA). A total of 1942 evaluation sheets with 10 fixed descriptive terms were analyzed. The means of Qualitative Behavior Index (QBI) were compared by the Tukey-Kramer test at 5% probability. On PPD1, training improved the QBI of Gyr and Gyr/Holstein heifers by 93 % and 43 %, respectively. The cumulative sum of the first two components explained 73.32 % of the variability in the datasets. High correlations were observed between the undesirable adjective pairs “nervous - aggressive” and “scared - irritable” (0.88); “confused-fearful” and “scared - irritable” (0.87) and between the desirable adjectives “calm - even-tempered” and” sociable - friendly” (0.78). The use of QBA to measure the welfare of pre- and postpartum Zebu heifers is applicable and efficient. The implementation of a training of prepartum Zebu heifers with environmental enrichment, tactile stimulation by brushing and human presence improved the adaptation of Zebu heifers to the postpartum milking system. We suggest brushing of Gyr heifers in the pre- as well as postpartum phases to improve the well-being of the animals.

Introduction

Zebu breeds are characterized by rusticity, adaptability, heat tolerance, resistance to ectoparasites and a high ability to digest fodder of lower nutritional value. Therefore, the dairy herds in extensive and semi-extensive farming systems in the tropical regions of Latin America consist mainly of Gyr cattle. However, the tension of these animals during milking is high (Paranhos da Costa et al., 2015). According to Van Reenen et al. (2002), this problem is more pronounced in primiparous than multiparous cows, due to the low human-animal interaction until the first lactation phase.

For this reason, a positive interaction between man and animal must be established, which can be done by implementing good management practices (Paranhos da Costa et al., 2015). Among these, tactile stimulation can be associated by the animal as a positive handling, creating a human-animal connection (Coulon et al., 2013).

Our hypothesis is that the behavior of post-partum zebu heifers, in spite of their high reactivity, can be significantly improved by tactile stimulation, i.e., positive stimuli consisting of brushing, manual stroking, talking and even human gestures in the pre-partum phase. According to Coulon et al. (2013), tactile stimulation can induce positive behavioral (e.g., decreased reactivity) and hormonal alterations (oxytocin release), that contribute to an enrichment of the human-animal interaction (Honorato et al., 2012). This environmental enrichment can be a change in the physical or social environment of the animal to improve its health and reproductive performance or to reduce stress. In this context, brushing is a sensorial modality that can help reduce antagonistic social behaviors and consequently, improve welfare (Oliveira et al., 2014),

Similarly, Bertenshaw et al. (2008) and Neri et al. (2016) stated that training with tactile stimuli in the prepartum period can familiarize the animal with humans and new procedures and contribute to positive postpartum responses. These authors also mentioned results such as less undesirable movements during milking, an increased milk production and better behavior responses in Dutch breed animals.

Consequently, it was expected that brushing the heifers would reduce undesirable movements, facilitate the milking management and shorten the duration of milking (during which the animal is tied by the legs to stay in the appropriate position) and briefly, improve the welfare of the farm animals.

The Welfare Quality® protocol uses the qualitative behavior assessment (QBA) methodology to measure the welfare of cattle. Other methods of welfare determination in cattle have also been complemented with QBA, as reported elsewhere (Stockman et al., 2011; Andreasen et al., 2013; Sant’Anna and Paranhos da Costa, 2013).

This methodology consists in observing the animals and understanding their behavioral expression, based on the human interpretation of the animal body language. This approach takes the health, physical, physiological and psychological state and welfare of the animals into consideration (Bokkers et al., 2012; Fleming et al., 2016). In a study of Oliveira and Keeling (2018), behavioral indicators were proposed that associate the body language of routine posture with the affective state of the cows.

The QBA has been successfully used by researchers in experiments with dairy cattle (Rousing and Wemelsfelder, 2006; Ellingsen et al., 2014), dairy buffalo (Napolitano et al., 2012), dairy goats (Battini et al., 2018), beef cattle (Stockman et al., 2011; Andreasen et al., 2013; Góis et al., 2016) and dairy calves (Ellingsen et al., 2014). Consequently, after minor adaptations of the adjectives, QBA is applicable to Zebu dairy heifers, as described by Lerman et al. (2010), and the behavior can be assessed by a qualitative index

However, no studies are available that use QBA to measure the welfare of Zebu heifers treated with positive handling prior to delivery. Therefore, this research qualitatively evaluated the development of the behavior of Zebu heifers, trained or untrained with tactile stimuli of brushing associated before the first milking, and applied a qualitative index to classify the behavior.

Section snippets

Ethics committee and location

The ethics committee for the use of animals (CEUA Protocol no. 533-2541-1/2017) of Embrapa Cerrados approved this study. The experiment was carried out at the Center for Technologies for Dairy Zebu Breeds (CTZL), (15°57′09″ S and 48° 08′12″ W), on an experimental farm of Embrapa Cerrados, Brasília-DF, Brazil, from August 16, 2018 to February 21, 2019.

Animals and milk production and quality

A total of 35 heifers (21 Gyr and 14 Gyr/Holstein) with a mean initial weight of 482 and 481 kg, respectively, 40 ± 6 months old, were left to

Results

The cumulative sum of the first two components explained 73.32 % of the variability in the data sets of individual behavior of Zebu heifers at different pre-and postpartum stages (Table 2).

The first factor attributed the highest positive values to the descriptive terms “scared - irritable”; “nervous - aggressive”; “distressed - restless”; “confused - fearful”; “bored - anxious”; “curious” and highest negative values to the adjectives “contented”, “calm - even-tempered”; “sociable - friendly”;

Discussion

This study investigated the responses of Zebu heifers in the pre and postpartum phases to the positive handling of the keeper (brushing) and evaluated them qualitatively. The main result showed a marked improvement in the behavior of desirable characteristics, mainly of Gyr heifers, measured by QBI in PPD1. Similarly, in evaluations with the qualitative temperament index (QTI), Góis et al. (2016) also recorded behavioral improvement over time, as indicated by declining scores.

Below, the use of

Conclusion

The implementation of training pre-partum Zebu heifers with tactile stimulation by brushing optimizes the adaptation to the postpartum milking system. The qualitative behavior assessment to measure the welfare of pre- and postpartum Zebu heifers proposed here is applicable and effective. The interpretation of body language expressed in scores proposes an effective qualitative behavior index that can be used by producers as an additional tool to determine the welfare of pre- and postpartum

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that there are no known conflicts of interest associated with this publication and there has been no significant financial support for this work that could have influenced its outcome.

Acknowledgments

The authors are indebted to the Technology Center for Dairy Zebu Breed (CTZL) of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), unit Cerrados, (Finance Code SEG No: 13.13.11.005.00.00) and the Association of Zebu Breeders of the Planalto region (ACZP) for their assistance with the experiment. This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamentode Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001 We thankfully acknowledge valuable contribution of

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