considered, aversion learning techniques are an effective method to determine which handling practices cattle find aversive or rewarding. q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Dairy cattle; Handling; Aversion; Learning; Mazes; Fear
1. Introduction
Cows find certain forms of handling to be aversive and, consequently, can develop a fear of people which can reduce welfare and milk production and increase the risk of
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injury to both animals and handlers Hemsworth and Coleman, 1998 . Dairy cows and calves learn to avoid a particular handler as a result of aversive treatment by that handler
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de Passille et al., 1996; Munksgaard et al., 1997; Rushen et al., 1999 . However, we do
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not yet know which handling treatments cattle find aversive. One approach is to use aversive learning techniques, which are based on the principle that animals learn to
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avoid treatments that they find aversive for a review, see Rushen, 1996 . These
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techniques have been used with poultry Rutter and Duncan, 1991, 1992 , cattle
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Schwartzkopf-Genswein et al., 1997 , sheep Grandin et al., 1986; Rushen 1986 and Ž
. deer Grigor et al., 1998 . One promising procedure involves the repeated application of
a treatment at the end of a race and measuring the time and force necessary to return the Ž
. animal through the race to the place where the treatment was done Karsh, 1962 . The
more aversive the treatment, the more the animal will resist returning to that place and the more time and force will be required to move the animal through the race. Aversion
raceways based on this principle have been used to assess the aversiveness of simulated
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shearing to sheep Hargreaves and Hutson, 1990 , the aversiveness of electroimmobilisa- Ž
. Ž
. tion to both sheep Rushen, 1986 and beef cattle Pascoe and McDonell, 1986 and the
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relative aversiveness of various management practices to red deer Grigor et al., 1998 . This technique has not been used previously to evaluate the aversiveness of various
handling procedures for dairy cattle. This paper describes the results of three experiments aimed at determining the
aversiveness of dairy cattle handling practices using the aversion race. In the first experiment, we tested the empirical validity of the aversion race by determining how
well it differentiates between treatments known to differ in aversiveness. In the second experiment, we used the aversion race to determine the relative aversiveness of various
techniques used to move cows. In the final experiment, we examined if the aversion race can differentiate between treatments thought to be rewarding, rather than aversive, to
young heifers.
2. General methods
