A3O-L«nc—tef Fanning, Saturday, June 5, 1999
GEORGE F.W. HAENLEIN
Retired Specialist
Dairy Extension
University of Delaware
NEWARK, Del.—lt used to be
that we would select against ani
mal temperament in our dairy
herds.
It is not enough that dairy farm
os, feeders and milkers of dairy
animals want to be gentle and un
derstanding in daily handling. In
addition, a certain behavior on the
part of the animals is needed to
ease management and avoid acci
dents to people and animals.
As a youngster growing up on a
small dairy farm in the south Ger
man mountains, I worked with
Milking simmentals.
I remember vividly how much
trouble the first milking of a just-
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fresh heifer often was. A new
event to the heifer, it was painful
because of her sensitive swollen
udder; she also missed her new
born calf.
The result was a great deal of
agitation and fear on her side and
impatience on ours, which lead to
hobbling and other restraints.
These tactics did nothing to re
duce ho 1 fear, and may even have
caused some kicking and injury to
her or to us. or, at the very least,
some spilled milk.
Understanding animal behavior
in the wild or of domesticated ani
mals, such as dogs, cats and hors
es, developed much sooner than
inside the cow bam.
Cows were not considered in
telligent or interesting for such
studies.
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They were held securely in
stanchion barns for safe manage
ment of milking, feeding, treating,
sleeping, even when they were left
out to grazing pastures for part of
the day or night
In the early 1960 s in the United
States a revolution began on the
dairy farm with a new manage
ment style of housing dairy cattle
away from stanchions in so-called
“loose housing” and “free stalls.”
The stanchion safety restraint
for handling cows disappeared,
except for milking, when die cows
had to march into a milking parlor.
Otherwise, they were loose for
feeding and sleeping.
It became obvious to farm man
agers and dairy scientists that they
had better learn about cow beha-
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vior, since the cows were now free
to interact with other cows that
had different personalities or
temperaments and with different
managers.
At that time no textbook existed
on the behavior of dairy cows,
goats or sheep, because there was
no extensive study, nor were offi
cial classes on farm animal beha
vior offered to college students.
I started one of the first courses
in this country on the behavior of
domesticated animals. Now every
United States agricultural college
offers such a course.
It is crucial to good dairy man
agement to understand how dairy
animals behave.
It is not enough to select against
an undesirable temperament of
animals within a herd, even
though we now know that beha-
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vior traits are inherited. We now
recognize that certain factors in
the farm environment includ
ing people have a modifying
influence on the behavior of farm
animals.
New research from Denmark,
published in the Journal of Dairy
Science (82(1999): 720-727),
reinforce the above discussion and
brings new insight into under
standing animal behavior by intro
ducing the term “fearfulness.”
Animals are fearful of anything
new and unfamiliar, under less
threatening conditions, however,
they want to explore the new and
become familiar with it.
If the experience is positive, it
will reduce fearfulness toward the
new, whether it’s an object or a
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