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Abstract

Dairy cattle experience a variety of stressors associated with routine farm practices. These events can cause fear responses that make the procedure challenging for the animal and the human handler. Positive reinforcement training (PRT) is used to reduce fear responses and there is evidence that this can facilitate handling on dairy farms. The aim of this thesis was to explore emotional responses, particularly fear, during handling events and to test if PRT had any effect on those responses. In the first chapter I reviewed literature on methods to assess emotion in animals, with a particular focus on fear and training literature. In the second chapter, I tested the effect of PRT on anticipatory and play behaviour in dairy heifers entering a restraining chute. I found that PRT results in heifers having more positive emotional states in anticipation of handling; these results support the use of training to improve welfare. In the third chapter, I assessed ear position and body movement responses of heifers during their first experience of artificial insemination and compared responses during baseline observations before and after this procedure and whether heifers exposed to PRT responded differently to this procedure. I found that heifers experiencing artificial insemination showed distinct ear positions consistent with responses to a negative emotional state but noted no differences between trained and untrained heifers. In the fourth chapter, I assessed behavioural responses associated with fear when cows were first introduced to an automatic milking system (AMS) and evaluated if these responses were affected by training. I found that an enhanced training protocol did not provide additional benefits beyond baseline training for the outcome measures examined. The results of my thesis illustrate that the training methods used in the studies described showed both benefits and limitations in mitigating fear-inducing procedures in dairy cattle. I suggest that future training efforts introduce each potentially fear-inducing stimulus separately, so as to improve the ability to mitigate fear responses. My work illustrates the promise of using anticipatory behaviours and ear positions to assess emotional states in cattle, suggesting that these measures may also be useful for future research.