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Lindsay Whistance presents Poster 83 during the poster sessions in the Aula.
Session theme 6: Free topics
155
Poster 83
TRAINING OF ELIMINATIVE BEHAVIOUR IN YEARLING DAIRY
HEIFERS
L.K. Whistance 1 , D.R. Arney 2 , L.S. Sinclair 3 , C.J.C. Phillips 4 .
1 Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Health, Welfare and Nutrition, Tjele, Denmark
2 Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia,
3 Harper Adams University College, Shropshire, UK
4 University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia.
Soiled bedding influences cleanliness and disease levels in dairy cows. If cows were trained to void
on concrete, a cleaner bed could be maintained.
Thirteen group-housed, 14-16-month-old Holstein-Friesian heifers, were clicker trained with heiferrearing
nuts as a reward. Phase 1) association of reward with clicker, criterion: 34/40 correct
responses. Phase 2) simple task (nose-butting a disc) to reinforce phase 1 association, criterion:
17/20 correct responses. Phase 3) association of eliminative behaviour with reward where criterion
was four sessions with only one incorrect response: criteria for each heifer were set using binomial
tests. Phase 4) shaping eliminative behaviour to occur on concrete. Possible responses were,
eliminating on concrete-(C) or straw-(S), or moving from one substrate to another immediately
before eliminating: C→S, S→C. If learning occurred, C should increase as C→S decreased and
S→C should increase as S decreased: tested with Spearman rank correlations.
All heifers achieved criterion by day four of phase 1 (p=0.001); day one of phase 2 (p=0.001) and
day ten of phase 3 (p