ABSTRACT
People who work with cattle are at severe risk of serious injury due to the size and strength of the cattle. This risk can be minimised by breeding less dangerous cattle, which have a more favourable reaction to humans. This study provides a systematic review of literature pertaining to cattle genetics relating to behaviour. The review protocol was developed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework, with Population, Exposure and Outcome components identified as Bovine, Genetics and Behaviour respectively. Forty-nine studies were identified in the sifting and assigned non-exclusively to groups of heritability (22), genomic associations (13) and production traits related to behaviour (24). Behavioural traits were clustered into the following groups: "temperament, disposition and/ or docility", "aggression", "chute score", "flight speed", "milking temperament", "non-restrained methods" and "restrained methods". Fourteen papers reported high accuracy (Standard Error ≤ 0.05) estimates of heritability, the majority (n = 12) of these studies measured over 1000 animals. The heritability estimates were found to vary between studies. Gene associations with behavioural traits were found on all chromosomes except for chromosome 13, with associated SNPs reported on all chromosomes except 5, 13, 17, 18 and 23. Generally, it was found that correlations between behaviour and production traits were low or negligible. These studies suggest that additive improvement of behavioural traits in cattle is possible and would not negatively impact performance. However, the variation between studies demonstrates that the genetic relationships are population specific. Thus, to assess the heritability, genetic associations with production and genomic areas of interest for behavioural traits, a large-scale study of the population of interest would be required.
ABSTRACT
Cattle production necessitates potentially dangerous human-animal interactions. Cattle are physically strong, large animals that can inflict injuries on humans accidentally or through aggressive behaviour. This study provides a systematic review of literature relating to farm management practices (including humans involved, facilities, and the individual animal) associated with cattle temperament and human's on-farm safety. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) was used to frame the review. Population, Exposure, and Outcomes (PEO) components of the research question are defined as "Bovine" (population), "Handling" (exposure), and outcomes of "Behaviour", and "Safety". The review included 17 papers and identified six main themes: actions of humans; human demographics, attitude, and experience; facilities and the environment; the animal involved; under-reporting and poor records; and mitigation of dangerous interactions. Cattle-related incidents were found to be underreported, with contradictory advice to prevent injury. The introduction of standardised reporting and recording of incidents to clearly identify the behaviours and facilities which increase injuries could inform policy to reduce injuries. Global differences in management systems and animal types mean that it would be impractical to impose global methods of best practice to reduce the chance of injury. Thus, any recommendations should be regionally specific, easily accessible, and practicable.
