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Poster 12
Helene Leruste presents Poster 12 during the poster sessions in the Aula.
Session theme 1: Development, validation and automated measurements of indicators of animal welfare
ASSESSMENT OF FEAR OF HUMANS IN VEAL CALVES: COMPARISON
OF 2 TESTS
H. Leruste 1 , J.L. Rault 2 , C.G. van Reenen 3 , J. Lensink 1
1 Institut Supérieur d’Agriculture (ISA) Lille, CASE, Lille, France
2 Department of Animal Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA
3 Animal Sciences Group, Wageningen-UR, Lelystad, The Netherlands
On-farm animal welfare monitoring systems currently developed integrate, amongst others,
assessment of the fear of humans. This criterion is generally assessed by two measures: voluntary
approach of the human by the animal or reaction of the animal to an approaching human. Our
objective was to identify if two tests assessing those two components generate similar outcomes.
Thirty five veal farms with in total 144 pens of 5-6 calves were studied. A human approach test
(HAT) was performed on 13-week-old calves. Their latency to touch a non-familiar person,
standing at the fence and the number of calves that touched the human within 3 min were recorded.
On the same day a calf escape test (CET) was performed. The calves’ reaction to the approach of
the same human in their home pen was assessed using a 5 points scale (0=no approach possible, 4=
calf can be touched).
On average, 50.51%±2.08 calves touched the human during the HAT with a mean latency of
62.84±3.36s. The mean CETscore was 1.88±0.05 and 17% of the tested calves could be touched
(score 4). At individual level (n=748 calves) latency to touch the human was negatively correlated
with the CETscore (r=-0.30; p