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Indicators of reactivity to humans to facilitate management decisions in dairy cattleThe nature of the interactions between stockpeople and cattle can make a great difference to the management decisions and practices carried out on farm. These interactions also have an important bearing on animal welfare by influencing the level of fearfulness of the animals. Understanding fearfulness in farm animals is a useful tool as it could help stockpeople predict an individual animal’s ability to adapt to routine husbandry procedures, and therefore take the necessary actions, such as training, which could lead to improved production efficiency and possibly provide an assessment of an animal’s overall welfare state. |
Expected outcomes of this project
| Benefit |
| Improved performance (behaviour and production) of heifers during introduction into the herd. |
| Reduce heifer losses due to culling related to poor behavioural performance in the milking parlour. |
| Recommendations to improve the process of heifer introduction into the milking parlour. |
