Social Behavior of Cattle
Natural History and Domestication of Cattle
Cattle are ungulates that were domesticated 8,000–10,000 years ago. Wild ancestors of cattle (aurochs) inhabited a wide territory spanning from East Asia to western Europe and northern Africa.
Today, there are two types of cattle: Bos indicus (zebu cattle) and Bos taurus (taurine cattle). Zebu cattle are better adapted to hot environments than taurine cattle are, and they have a fatty hump, dewlap, and drooping ears, which taurine cattle do not have.
Cattle are used primarily for meat and milk production in agricultural systems. In some places, cattle are still used as draft animals.
Social Structure of Cattle
Both feral and domesticated cattle are gregarious and live in social groups (herds). As a gregarious species, cattle synchronize their behavior, foraging or resting at the same time as others in the herd. However, behavior coordination is more common on pasture than in confinement housing.
Social isolation for cattle is stressful; signs of stress include vocalization, increased heart rate, urination, and defecation. Efforts should be taken to ensure that cattle are not socially isolated, such as keeping animals in pairs if one animal needs to be removed from the herd.
Without human intervention, cattle live in matrilineal social groups with females and their offspring. Males leave their familial group at 1–2 years old and live either in bachelor groups with animals of similar ages and sizes or solitarily.
In agricultural production settings, social groups of cattle are manipulated by humans to meet the needs of the production system.
For dairy production, all-female groups consist of all adults or all juveniles and are further subgrouped by age and lactation status.
For beef production, social groups include mainly cow-calf groups (females and their calves until weaning) and mixed-sex groups of females and castrated males.
Social dominance hierarchies are established and maintained in social groups through agonistic and affiliative behaviors. Agonistic behaviors displayed by cattle include threatening, chasing, displacing from resources, and head butting. Allogrooming (social licking) is the primary affiliative behavior performed by cattle and is generally directed toward the neck.
Dominance hierarchies are relatively stable in stable social groups, except that the position of juveniles within their group is more variable. Social dominance hierarchies are reestablished when new animals are added to an existing social group. Agonistic interactions are generally directed toward new group members upon entry, but they decline within a few days after mixing.
Cattle are ruminants and have a grazing foraging type, meaning that they typically eat grasses and low-growing vegetation. However, cattle can be observed browsing when they are kept in areas with trees or shrubs.
The amount of time cattle spend feeding ranges from 4 to 6 hours per day when feed is readily available in confinement, and from 6 to 10 hours per day when they rely on foraging for feed intake.
Cattle have a diurnal rhythm, consuming most of their feed during daylight and lying down at night to rest and ruminate. The amount of lying time generally ranges from 8 to 12 hours per day.
Sexual and Maternal Behavior of Cattle
Cows are polyestrous and able to breed throughout the year. Females in estrus have increased activity and will stand to be mounted by bulls or other female cattle. Before parturition, cows separate themselves from the herd to give birth, and they seek cover such as tall grasses, trees, or a calving blind, when one is provided.
Calves are precocial and stand to suckle from their dam within an hour after birth. For approximately 1 week after birth, calves stay hidden in tall grasses or trees while the dam forages. Approximately 1 week after birth, cows introduce their calves to the herd.
Crèches (peer groups of calves) form within days to months after birth and are cared for by multiple adult cattle in the herd. Weaning occurs gradually over time, between approximately 8 and 12 months of age.
Pearls & Pitfalls
|
Behavior Problems of Cattle
Housing and management of cattle in agricultural systems are commonly misaligned with cattle’s behavioral and resource needs. Cattle perform many behaviors in response to their inability to perform motivated behaviors and access important resources.
Competition for Resources in Cattle
In many confinement housing systems for cattle, the feeding and resting areas are overcrowded (ie, the ratio of resources to animals is too low).
Overcrowding frequently results in increased agonistic behaviors between cattle, such as chasing, threatening, head butting, and displacing, as they attempt to access resources. For example, dairy cattle displace each other from feed bunks and lying stalls more frequently when less than one feed bunk and one lying stall are available per cow.
Abnormal Behaviors of Cattle
In the dairy industry, calves are removed from their dam within hours after birth and are artificially reared. Calves are fed milk from a bucket or from a nipple via a bottle or automatic milk feeder. Milk volumes fed to these calves are frequently lower than what calves would consume if kept with their dam or fed ad libitum.
Calves' inability to consume adequate amounts of milk to reach satiety and to suckle from a nipple if they are fed from a bucket can result in abnormal oral behaviors. Calves are highly motivated to suck and will perform nonnutritive oral behaviors, such as sucking on other calves (cross-sucking) or on fixtures in their environment (nonnutritive sucking), when they are not provided a nipple from which to drink milk.
Tongue rolling, in which an animal moves its tongue in a circular motion outside its mouth, is another abnormal oral behavior that is commonly performed by juvenile and adult dairy and beef cattle. The cause of tongue rolling in cattle is unclear.
Buller steer syndrome is an abnormal behavior observed in feedlots, in which one steer (the buller) is repeatedly mounted and ridden by other steers (riders). Mounting is a normal behavior but becomes abnormal when it occurs outside of mating events, is excessive, or is directed at only specific animals.
Cattle that are bullers commonly have lower weight gain and increased risk of injury and death. Factors such as the use of anabolic agents, a higher density of animals per pen, less space per animal, and barren environments can contribute to the emergence of buller steer syndrome in feedlots.
Key Points
Domesticated cattle have retained many of their natural behaviors and perform them in agricultural production systems.
Cattle are gregarious and, with the exception of parturition, synchronize their behaviors.
Behavior problems are a result of cattle's needs not being met. Many abnormal behaviors can be observed in dairy calves during the preweaning period.
For More Information
Tucker CB. Behaviour of cattle. In: Jensen P, ed. The Ethology of Domestic Animals: An Introductory Text. 3rd ed. CABI; 2017:189-198.
