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91
Poster 19
Susanne Waiblinger presents Poster 19 during the poster sessions in the Aula.
Session theme 1: Development, validation and automated measurements of indicators of animal welfare
RELIABILITY OF OBSERVATIONS OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS IN
DAIRY GOATS
S. Waiblinger, C. Graml, J. Pemberger
Institute of Animal Husbandry and Welfare, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria
On farm studies on social behaviour of dairy goats are scarce. Such studies require reliable and
feasible assessment of social interactions. The aim of this study was to look for inter-observer
reliability and short-term repeatability of assessment of agonistic and socio-positive interactions in
herds of dairy goats.
10 farms with herd size of 48 – 165 dairy goats were visited on two consecutive days. For
repeatability between days, the frequency of social interactions were recorded on each farm two
hours after the end of morning milking and two hours in the afternoon on both days (one observer).
The barn was divided into segments to allow for continuous behaviour sampling. To test for interobserver
reliability, observations were performed in parallel by two observers for a total of 2 h on 7
farms (12 segmental 10min observations per farm, n=84). Reliability was tested by calculating
Spearman rank correlations coefficients and testing for observer bias by Wilcoxon tests.
Inter-observer reliability was high for agonistic behaviours with body contact (rs=0.92; p=0.000;
n=84) and without body contact (threatening; rs=0.91; p=0.000) as well as for socio-positive
behaviours (rs=0.86; p=0.000). No observer bias was detectable. Most of the single agonistic
behaviours showed somewhat lower correlations, ranging from rs=0.51 to rs =0.87. Repeatability
between days (n=10) was moderate for socio-positive behaviour (rs=0.697; p=0.025), the frequency
of agonistic interactions was not repeatable (rs