Current state of knowledge on the cognitive capacities of goats and its potential to inform species-specific enrichment

Assessing Animal Welfare Risk in Fibre-Producing Animals by Applying the Five Domains Framework

Nearly 5 billion farm animals, including waterfowl, cattle, sheep, goats, and alpacas, are being affected by the fashion industry. There is an urgent need for a system that evaluates their welfare. The rise in public interest on the topic of animal welfare is leading to the creation of different textile standards or certification schemes, which can give us an overview of the general state of expectations in terms of animal welfare within the textile industry. We therefore created a risk assessment tool and applied it to 17 different textile standards. Our results showed that only one of the standards reached a score in the "Acceptable" animal welfare risk category, and the rest of the standards had even lower scores of risks for animal welfare. In general, industry standards have not demanded sufficient requirements for higher levels of animal welfare. While the current risk assessment gave us a good idea of what is considered acceptable within the industry, it is also not necessarily representative of the risks for the majority of farm animals that are part of the textile industry. Only a small number of animal-derived materials are certified with some form of animal welfare standards, even though these standards can play an important role in improving the standard of care for animals. To evaluate the actual welfare states of the animals in fibre production, further research is needed to apply the proposed tool to actual farms.

Browse or browsing: Investigating goat preferences for feeding posture, feeding height and feed type

Goats naturally browse different forages in various postures; this differs from typical farm practice, thus there are opportunities to improve goat welfare by understanding what and how they like to eat. We investigated if feeding preference was related to posture, feeder height relative to the ground, and type of feed. Sixteen adult, Saanen cross females participated in two experiments comparing a floor-level feeder (grazing posture; farm standard), with an elevated feeder (browsing posture; Exp1) and a platform-level feeder (raised, grazing posture; Exp2), when two forages (leaves, grass) were offered. Measurements included feed intake (g of DM/feeder), feeder switching frequency, first feeder visited, latency to visit first feeder and exploration and non-feeding activity time. Effects of posture (Exp1), height (Exp2) and feed type were analyzed. Type of feed affected preference for feeding posture and height. All goats consumed leaves over grass (Exp1: POP: 188 ± 6.52 g, GRA: 20.3 ± 7.19 g; Exp2: POP: 191 ± 6.15 g, GRA: 0.231 ± 6.91 g; P < 0.001), and the feeder containing leaves was often visited first (Exp 1: GRA/POP: 94% of visits, P < 0.001, POP/GRA: 53%, P = 0.724; Exp 2: GRA/POP: 91%, P < 0.001; POP/GRA: 69%, P = 0.041). When goats received only leaves, they consumed more from the floor-level (162 ± 22.2 g) vs. elevated level (102 ± 21.9 g) feeder (P = 0.039). When goats received only grass, there was no posture or height preference; however, they changed feeders more frequently (at least 4x (Exp1) and 2x (Exp2) more than other combinations; P > 0.01). Feed intake was negatively affected by exploring time (Exp1 only: r = −0.541; P < 0.001) and performing non-feeding activities (Exp1: r = −0.698; P < 0.001; Exp2: r = −0.673; P < 0.001). We did not identify a preference for elevated feeding posture; however, we suggest that our short test (compared to previous work) encouraged goats to make choices based on line-of-sight and also that the elevated feeder design (replicated from previous work) made leaf access harder. Nonetheless, we highlight that some goats actively used the elevated feeder; this coupled with the clear preference for leaves over grass, suggests that offering feed type and presentation diversity would allow individuals to express their natural feeding behavior more fully.

Rearing goat kids away from their dams 1. A survey to understand rearing methods

Despite an estimated global goat population of over one billion, little is known about methods being used to feed milk to artificially reared kids (reared away from their dams) and how kids are weaned from these systems. Quantifying and characterising current methods utilised on farms will enable future targeted research to investigate best practice methods for milk feeding and weaning of artificially rearedkids.A recall-based survey that investigated on-farmkid-rearingpractices (focusing on the milk feeding and weaning stages) was distributed via social media, and regional goat organisations across multiple countries. A total of 242 responses from 16 countries were collected and geographically grouped. Responses that could not be grouped sufficiently were removed (nine responses from eight countries). A total of 233 responses from eight countries (United States of America (USA) 72; United Kingdom (UK) 71; Australia 33; Canada 23; New Zealand 20; European Union (EU) 14), were analysed. Most farms (217; 93%) bred their own kids. The most common milk feeding method was bottle feeding, used on 135 farms (57.9%), followed by ad libitum feeding used by 72 (30.9%). A relationship between number of kids reared and feeding system was identified, χ²(3, N = 233) = 89.605,P < 0.001, with farms rearing > 100 kids more likely to feed milk ad libitum. A total of 170 farms (72.9%) were weaned based on a target age and 85 (36.4%) on a target weight, 53 (22.7%) used both and 45 (19.3%) neither. Target weaning ages and weights varied across countries; the median age was 84 days (interquartile range (IQR) 56-84), and the median weight was 16 kg (IQR 15-18). A difference was found between milk feeding systems for weaning method (Χ²(2, N = 232) = 63.797,P≤0.001), with kids most likely to be abruptly weaned from ad libitum systems (or gradually weaned from bottle feeding). Abrupt weaning was used by 67 farms (28.8%), and gradual weaning was used by 165 (71.1%). Gradual weaning strategies included reducing milk quantity (150 farms; 93% of farms providing detail) and diluting milk (six farms; 4%). A total of 169 (72.5%) supplied enrichment that met the survey's definition; items to climb on/hide in were most common, provided by 157 farms (92.8%). Findings suggest differing practices in smaller-scalebottle-fedversuslarger-scalead libitummilksystems, likely reflecting differing system needs.This highlights a requirement for welfare-focused research in kids reared artificiallyin order to identify and communicatebest practices to ensure on-farm welfare is optimised within each system.

Recent Insights Into Processing Approaches and Potential Health Benefits of Goat Milk and Its Products: A Review

Goat milk is considered to be a potential source of various macro- and micro-nutrients. It contains a good proportion of protein, fat, carbohydrates, and other nutritional components which help in promoting nutritional and desirable health benefits. Goat milk is considered to be superior in terms of numerous health benefits, and lower risk of allergy, when compared to the milk of other species. Several processing techniques such as pasteurization, ultrafiltration, microfiltration, and ultrasound have been employed to enhance the quality and shelf life of goat milk and its products. The diverse range of goat milk-based products such as yogurt, cheese, fermented milk, goat milk powder, and others are available in the market and are prepared by the intervention of advanced processing technologies. Goats raised in pasture-based feeding systems are shown to have a better milk nutritional composition than its counterpart. Goat milk contains potential bioactive components, which aids in the maintenance of the proper metabolism and functioning of the human body. This review gives insight into the key nutritional ingredients and bioactive constituents present in goat milk and their potential role in the development of various functional foods using different processing technologies. Goat milk could be considered as a significant option for milk consumption in infants, as compared to other milk available.

Comparative cognition in three understudied ungulate species: European bison, forest buffalos and giraffes

Background

Comparative cognition has historically focused on a few taxa such as primates, birds or rodents. However, a broader perspective is essential to understand how different selective pressures affect cognition in different taxa, as more recently shown in several studies. Here we present the same battery of cognitive tasks to two understudied ungulate species with different socio-ecological characteristics, European bison (Bison bonasus) and forest buffalos (Syncerus caffer nanus), and we compare their performance to previous findings in giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis). We presented subjects with an Object permanence task, Memory tasks with 30 and 60 s delays, two inference tasks based on acoustic cues (i.e. Acoustic inference tasks) and a control task to check for the use of olfactory cues (i.e. Olfactory task).

Results

Overall, giraffes outperformed bison and buffalos, and bison outperformed buffalos (that performed at chance level). All species performed better in the Object permanence task than in the Memory tasks and one of the Acoustic inference tasks (which they likely solved by relying on stimulus enhancement). Giraffes performed better than buffalos in the Shake full Acoustic inference task, but worse than bison and buffalos in the Shake empty Acoustic inference task.

Conclusions

In sum, our results are in line with the hypothesis that specific socio-ecological characteristics played a crucial role in the evolution of cognition, and that higher fission-fusion levels and larger dietary breadth are linked to higher cognitive skills. This study shows that ungulates may be an excellent model to test evolutionary hypotheses on the emergence of cognition.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12983-021-00417-w.