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Gewählte Master / Diploma Thesis:

Anna Katharina Bernhardt (2020): Untersuchungen zum Sozialverhalten von Ziegen Soziale Netzwerke und ihr Zusammenhang mit Parametern der klassischen Rangordnung.
Master / Diploma Thesis - Institut für Nutztierwissenschaften (NUWI), BOKU-Universität für Bodenkultur, pp 66. UB BOKU obvsg FullText

Abstract:

Knowledge of social behaviour is necessary to design welfare-friendly husbandry systems. Social behaviour comprises both the behaviour of the individual towards group members and the total relationships/interactions within groups. To analyse these relationships, classical measures of dominance hierarchy (DH) but also social networks (SN) that consider the direction and quantity of interactions can be used. Studies on SN of goats are however limited. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the social behaviour of goats regarding 1) the variability of SN in different groups, 2) the stability of SN over time and, 3) the connection between SN parameters and DH parameters. For this purpose, the behaviour of 6 groups of 10 goats each (3 groups of dairy goats and 3 groups of dwarf goats) was observed from video recordings to assess SN parameters (June and September 2018) and using live observations to derive DH parameters (November 2018). Individual- and group-related parameters of the social networks (for agonistic behaviour/displacements at the feeding rack and affiliative behaviour/lying partners) and parameters of the DH (based on displacements in the whole pen) were calculated. The SN for agonistic and affiliative behaviour differed clearly; goats seem to have few lying partners, while displacements at the feeding rack were shown with many group members. The variability between different goat groups was high and the stability of the SN over time was low. Furthermore, there was only a weak correlation between the parameters of DH and SN. The analysis of SN seems to meaningfully complement the calculation of DH. However, for the assessment and interpretation of natural variations in SN or to understand the effect of environmental factors, studies with more animals and over longer time periods are required.

Beurteilende(r): Winckler Christoph