Animal Welfare-पशु कल्याण

Impact of Human-Animal Relationship on Productivity and Welfare of Livestock & Poultry

May 2, 2022

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Impact of Human-Animal Relationship on Productivity and Welfare of Livestock & Poultry

Dr. Rajni Arora (Assistant Professor), Dr. Naushali Gurjar

Introduction

Human-animal relationships (HAR) can be defined as “the degree of relation or distance that exists between an animal and a human being, perceived, developed and expressed through their mutual behaviour”.

Farm animals, may perceive interaction with humans as: (Claxton 2011; des Roches et al 2016).

a) Negative – When they fear people, avoiding contact with them
b) Neutral -When the fear level is low but animals still avoid contact
c) Positive – When fear is absent, and animals allow physical contact with them

Handling that includes abrupt movements, pushing and the use of rods, shouts and kicks is considered negative, while handling characterised by slow movements, whispers and petting have positive effects on animals (Ellingsen et al 2014).

Non-aggressive controlling interactions, such as gentle stick use, gentle handling and instructive talking, are considered neutral (Waiblinger et al 2002).

The use of positive reinforcements, like feeding or tactile contact, often fosters learning in farm animals (Rochais et al 2014) and may stimulate physiological reactions that can be interpreted as “anti-stress effects” (Lürzel et al 2015). This is one of the means of improving the quality of HAR

Measures of HAR – Evaluating the quality of HAR is an important means of improving animal welfare. This process must consider the behaviour of the animals towards stockpersons as well as the behaviour of the stockpersons towards the animals.

Assessing the quality of HAR requires the gathering of evidence that is: (Roches et al 2016).

Valid (i.e., reflects what actually occurs);
Reliable (i.e., the tendency to give consistent results with repeated measurement); and
Viable (in terms of time, financial resources and safety)

Important human factors to be considered during this assessment are stockperson’s attitudes, personality, knowledge, experience and degree of work satisfaction. The attitude towards any kind of animal will affect the quality of interaction and the type of handling.

Attitudes during animal handling have been classified as: (Waiblinger et al 2006).

Tranquil or friendly;
Dominant;
Impatient; and
Aggressive

Means to assess the HAR

(i) Use an interview about stockperson practices (Kling-Eveillard et al 2017);
(ii) Observing stockpersons during common (Ellingsen et al 2014) or less common handling events (Destrez et al 2018);
(iii) Assess farmer’s attitudes through a questionnaire (Fukasawa et al 2017)
(iv) Use video-recording (Johansson et al 2015).
(v) The Stationary Person Test, the Avoidance Distance Test and the Touch Test had been validated to effectively measure the human-hen relationship in non-caged systems (Graml et al 2008).
(vi) However, according to Spoolder (2007), it is more relevant to assess the quality of the HAR directly by looking at farmers´ attitudes and handling practices than by assessing fear of humans.

Types of Human-Animal Relationships (HAR)

Concerned Detachment 2. Concerned Attachment
Attached Attachment 4. Detached Detachment
Concerned Detachment –

Farmers handle their animals with care; but relate to them in detached manner i.e. seeing them not as individuals, but rather as a function of commercial production.

Relationship is impersonal and indifferent

Example : Farmers who rear livestock for slaughter or with large number of animals.

Concerned Attachment –

Relationship is more personal

Farmer appreciate the animal for more than their production utility and sees them as an individuals.

Example : when animals are used for breeding as they stay on farm for longer period of time

Attached Attachment –

Farm animals are regarded as outdoor pets and receive preferential treatment.

Uncommon among commercial farmers

Found only among recreational ‘hobby’ farmers

Detached Detachment –

Common among farmers who only deal with their animals from a distance and do not handle them directly

Livestock is purely considered a commodity

Effects on productivity and welfare

The nature of HAR matters as it will modulate not only the welfare of the animal, including its health, but also productivity and product quality (Tallet et al 2018).

Research on HAR and animal production has been mainly focused on its effect on stress, productivity and meat quality (Hemsworth et al 2009).

Positive Effects
Negative Effects
Positive Effects

A positive relationship is notably characterized by absence of fear reactions to humans and animals that are easier to handle (Waiblinger et al 2006).

Positive interactions such as pats, gentle slaps or talking to the animals showed positive effects reducing fear and human avoidance. Also, among the interactions with humans that can be perceived as positive, food provision is an efficient way of attracting animals (Tallet et al 2005).

Stockpersons with positive attitudes towards animals often have animals with increased productivity (Rushen and de Passillé 2015).

Positive Effects in Pigs

Human-animal interactions as short as 4h/sow/reproductive cycle, may influence both the performance and welfare of the animals (Prunier and Tallet 2015).

Janczak et al (2003) found that sows showing less fear of humans had higher reproductive success and more adaptive maternal behaviour.

Intact males, that are commonly raised in stable groups in some countries, when they were positively handled were more socially active, both in their groups and with an unfamiliar human (Tallet et al 2013).

Positive Effects in Poultry

Handling studies on poultry show that regular positive gentle handling can enhance growth performance, feed efficiency, egg production, disease resistance to infection, antibody protection and first-week survival (Edwards et al 2010)

In adult laying hens, reduction in fear of humans and a decrease in plasma corticosterone concentration were shown following additional handling, consisting of walking, talking, feeding and touching single birds (Graml et al 2008).

Similarly, Edwards et al (2010) showed for laying hens that 12 min/day of visual contact with humans during rearing resulted in reduced avoidance behaviour of humans during adulthood and there was a trend for hens receiving positive handling to have a lower corticosterone response to human contact than those receiving negative handling.

Positive Effects in Cattle and Buffaloes

Hemsworth et al (1989) reported that the stockperson’s presence and positive handling during calving of heifers led to faster approach to an experimenter in a test situation, lower cortisol concentrations, and less stepping and kicking responses during milking in the first weeks of lactation than heifers that calved without human presence.

According to Ellingsen et al (2014), stockpersons who handle their calves patiently, pet them and calmly talk to them during handling, induce in their animals’ higher levels of positive mood.

Gentle stroking in dairy cattle has been shown to reduce heart rate increased during a veterinary procedure (Schmied et al 2010).In addition, in beef cattle, gentle touching at an early age seems to reduce the cortisol release at slaughter (Probst et al 2012).

The HAR is also relevant for udder health. found that positive behaviour of stockpersons during milking was associated with lower somatic cell counts and with lower prevalence of mastitic quarters. (Ivemeyer et al 2018)

As also observed in cattle, in dairy buffaloes the number of positive interactions performed by stock-people was positively correlated with milk production (Napolitano et al 2019).

Negative Effects

Negative handling such as shouting and hitting, leads to poor animal welfare, including fear, acute and chronic stress (Hemsworth et al 2000).

Fear responses towards humans may affect the productivity , health and stress physiology of farm animals as in pigs, hens and dairy cows (Adler et al 2019).

Negative Effects in Pigs

Poor handling results in high levels of fearfulness . Negative behaviours displayed by the stockperson (e.g. slapping, hitting and kicking) are strongly associated with a high level of fear in pigs (Hemsworth et al 1989).

Hemsworth et al (1981) subjected gilts to either pleasant or unpleasant human contact for three 2-min periods/week, from 11 to 22 weeks of age. The authors noted that the juvenile females with the pleasant handling treatment had higher weigh gain than those with other treatments.

Lensink et al (2009), observed that the fear response to humans of nulliparous sows was linked with their behaviour towards humans and nervousness around first farrowing, and these negative interactions were mostly related with prophylactic and therapeutic procedures.

Unpleasant physical contact with humans reduced testicle size and delayed coordinated mating response in boars, and reduced pregnancy rate in sows, when compared with those receiving positive human handling (Hemsworth et al 1986).

Negative Effects in Poultry

High fear of humans is associated with reduced egg production, growth, feed efficiency, product quality and sexual activity whilst increasing aggression, handling difficulties and immuno-suppression (Barnett et al 1993; 1994; Gross and Siegel 1982; Jones 1996).

Visual or physical contact with humans can elicit behavioural inhibition, withdrawal panic and violent escape reactions in chickens often with associated injury as well as adrenal responses. (Jones 1996)

Fear reactions, like panic or violent escape attempts, not only waste energy and thereby impose a metabolic cost, but they can also result in injury or even death when the birds run into obstacles or pile on top of each other (Waiblinger et al 2006).

Negative Effects in Cattle and Buffaloes

Poor HAR is associated with reduced milk production by cows, aversion to shouts (Waynert et al 1999; Pajor et al 2000).

Ellingsen et al (2014) observed that stockpersons with a nervous handling style or who were dominant and aggressive, induced a negative mood in more cows.

Hemsworth et al (2000) found that the use of negative interactions with cattle by stockpersons was not only negatively correlated with milk yield, but also with percent protein and fat, and positively correlated with milk cortisol concentration.

In dairy buffaloes the number of negative interactions performed by stock-people was positively correlated with the number of kicks by buffaloes during milking and with the number of exogenous oxytocin injections used to induce milk let-down (Napolitano et al 2019).

Factors Affecting the Quality of HAR –