Home|Journals|Articles by Year|Audio Abstracts
 

Original Article



What are we losing? Are the personality traits of Italian autochthonous cows different from those of cosmopolitan breeds?

Giovanni Quintavalle Pastorino, Massimo Faustini, Francesca Vitali, Silvia Michela Mazzola, Giulio Curone.




Abstract

Objective: This study assessed personality traits in five cattle breeds (Bos taurus), two cosmopolitan (Holstein Friesian and Brown Swiss) and three endangered Italian autochthonous (Varzese, Rendena, and Modenese). Our aim was to provide an evaluation of the personality dimensions obtained by our questionnaire in order to compare some Italian autochthonous breeds with the cosmopolitan one. Our choice fell upon the comparison of the Varzese, the Modenese, the Rendena, the Brown Swiss, and the Holstein Friesian because the genetic selection at the base of the typical attitudes has induced different characteristics, and as a consequence, detectable differences in personality can be expected between the populations.
Materials and methods: A personality questionnaire was completed by milkers/owners for each subject involved in this study. The milking staff involved in the study have been working with cows for over 20 years; they have experience with numerous breeds, and therefore, can be considered expert evaluators since they certainly have an appreciation of the full range of cow behavior.
Results: The milkersÂ’ assessments analysis found breed differences in dairy cattle, showing that certain personality traits are more marked in certain breeds in terms of curiosity, friendliness to milkers, and responses to unknown people.
Conclusion: This pilot survey shows the usefulness of questionnaires in cattle personality studies, highlighting some peculiarity of the endangered breeds.

Key words: Biodiversity; Cattle; Personality; Welfare






Full-text options


Share this Article


Online Article Submission
• ejmanager.com




ejPort - eJManager.com
Refer & Earn
JournalList
About BiblioMed
License Information
Terms & Conditions
Privacy Policy
Contact Us

The articles in Bibliomed are open access articles licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.