Acknowledgements Book of abstracts - Publicaties - Vlaanderen.be

Claudia Schmied presents Poster 24 during the poster sessions in the Aula.
Session theme 2: Assessing emotional state and human-animal relations
96
Poster 24
TESTING THE ANIMAL-HUMAN RELATIONSHIP OF CALVES AND
HEIFERS ON DAIRY FARMS
C. Schmied, K. Soucek, S. Waiblinger
Institute of Animal Husbandry and Animal Welfare, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria
Different tests assessing animal-human relationship (= AHR) were applied to young dairy cattle and
their feasibility and convergent validity were investigated.
On 33 farms, all rearing animals (single-calves, group-calves, loose housed heifers) were tested in
their voluntary approach to an unknown motionless test-person standing outside the barn.
Parameters were percentage of animals approaching to contact (= sniffing or licking) with person
(%CONT) and percentage of animals possible to touch by the test-person afterwards (%TOUCH).
In group-calves, heifers and cows the avoidance reactions to an unknown approaching human were
tested at the feeding place, parameter was the median (=AR-MED in m). In calves, reactions to
human approach and touch during bucket-feeding were scored (Lensink 2001). For analysis
Spearman-rank-correlations were used.
Within age classes, in the approach-test high correlations were found between %CONT (single:
100%; group: 80%) and %TOUCH (100%; 35%) of calves (N=31, r>0.81, p