Congratulations to Emeline Nogues for publishing her first paper with the Animal Welfare Program, together with PhD candidate Benjamin Lecorps, in Animals! The paper, ‘Individual variability in response to social stress in dairy heifers’, examined whether it is better to engage or avoid social interactions when mixed with older cows.
Mixing unfamiliar animals (or regrouping) is a common practice on dairy farms. This disruption in the social organization typically results in increased agonistic interactions and changes in time feeding and resting. The study objective was to see if different individuals subjected to a similar regrouping event would display different levels of engagement in social interactions and avoidance of social contact, and if these differences were associated with other behavioural changes.
Read the article: mdpi.com/800686
