Genetics and Behavior During Handling, Restraint, and Herding - Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals - page 139

to observe range cows that will come up and lick people and will stand still
while being scratched and petted. It is likely they are selected for low FEAR,
high CARE (maternal nurturing), and PANIC (separation distress). The
appearance of these reddish brown animals is striking. They are muscular
and heavy boned with either high hair whorls on the forehead or no hair
whorls.
Faure and Mills (Chapter 8) demonstrated that the traits of fearfulness
and social reinstatement are genetically separate. Social reinstatement and
PANIC (separation distress) are probably the same emotional system. In
Japanese quail, social reinstatement is defined as the tendency of an isolated
bird to rejoin flockmates. In a wild population it is likely that both fear and
high social reinstatement would appear naturally in the same animal because
this would improve survival. In domestic cattle, fearful animals bunch
together tightly when excited. Tight bunching is probably motivated by high
fear. Social reinstatement makes animals bond and is probably not motivated
by fear. Faure and Mills showed that social reinstatement is separate from
fear because they were able to select and breed both low-fear and high-social
reinstatement birds and vice versa.
A second group of cattle similar to the Lasater Beefmasters's were
observed by the first author during a trip to England in 2012. The cattle were
Limousin 3 Devon cross cows that were very docile. They allowed strange
people to approach them out on pasture, even though they had young calves.
The cows were attentive to their calves and vocalized to call them as soon as
they saw a strange tractor towing a trailer full of people entering the pasture.
Most of the hair whorls on the cows were slightly above the eyes and no ani-
mals with extremely low whorls were observed. The cows were heavy boned
yet extremely curious and quickly approached and touched the novel tractor.
Even though heavy boned, their nervous system was vigilant. When I jumped
off the trailer, most of the cows flinched but did not run away. The authors
speculate that the combination of Devon genetics and Limousin had reduced
FEAR, and produced animals that were high SEEKING, high PANIC (sepa-
ration distress), and high CARE (maternal nurturing). Devons are bred to be
docile and some farmers report they may push other cattle away from
resources such as feed troughs. Possibly Limoisin genetics helped to main-
tain the vigilance trait.
THE EFFECTS OF EARLY EXPERIENCE ON HANDLING
Animals vary genetically in their susceptibility to environmental influences.
Evidence indicates that some animals, such as those with emotional tempera-
ments, are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of negative experience. In
fact, they are actually more vulnerable to both positive and negative experi-
ences. Early rearing effects in cattle have been studied by Dellmeier et al.
(1985) . Calves were reared in individual stalls, which restricted movement.