Aggression in cattle is usually a result of

fear Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear ...

learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machine learning, machines ...

, and hormonal state, however, many other factors can contribute to aggressive behaviors in cattle.

Temperament traits

Temperament In psychology, temperament broadly refers to consistent individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning, system of values and attitudes. Some researchers point to association of temperam ...

traits are known to be traits in which explain the

behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...

and actions of an

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...

and can be described in the traits responsible for how easily an animal can be approached, handled,

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. Immune factors and immune ...

ed, or trained. Temperament can also be defined as how an animal carries out maternal or other behaviors while subjected to routine management. These traits have the ability to change as the animal ages or as the

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

in which the animal lives changes over time, however, it is proven that regardless of age and environmental conditions, some individuals remain more aggressive than others.

Aggression Aggression is overt or covert, often harmful, social interaction with the intention of inflicting damage or other harm upon another individual; although it can be channeled into creative and practical outlets for some. It may occur either reacti ...

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

can arise from both genetic and environmental factors. Aggression between cows is worse than that between bulls. Bulls with horns will bunt (push or strike with the horns) in which can cause more damage overall. In humans, most aggressive behaviors of cows include kicking, crushing and/or blunting.

Types of aggression

There are many types of aggression that are seen in animals, particularly cattle, including maternal, feed, comfort influencing, pain induced, and stress induced aggressiveness.

Maternal aggression

There are many components to maternal behavior that are seen in cattle, including behavior that allows proper bonding between mother and baby, nursing behavior, attentiveness and how mother responds to offspring. This maternal behavior is often seen in cattle during

lactation Lactation describes the secretion of milk from the mammary glands and the period of time that a mother lactates to feed her young. The process naturally occurs with all sexually mature female mammals, although it may predate mammals. The proces ...

as a

prey Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the ...

species, this triggers the maternal instinct to protect their young from any threat and may use violent aggressive behaviors as a defense mechanism. During lactation in prey species, including cattle, a reduction in fear responsiveness of the dam to novel and potentially dangerous situations facilitates the expression of defensive aggression in protection of the young. It has also been proven however that aggression is not only performed in the protection of the

offspring In biology, offspring are the young creation of living organisms, produced either by a single organism or, in the case of sexual reproduction, two organisms. Collective offspring may be known as a brood or progeny in a more general way. This ca ...

, but it can be directed to the offspring, in which could be directly related to fear.

Feed aggression

This is commonly seen in cattle due to high stocking densities which could potentially decrease the amount of space each cow has, as well as limit their ability to have access to feed, even impacting the ruminal environment. It is proven that supplying feed and water to cattle that are housed together may be heavily associated with feed aggression and aggressive actions towards others cows and within loose-housed cattle, feeding places are noted to have the highest amount of aggressive behaviors.

Comfort induced aggression

These are aggressive behaviors associated with lack of comfort, inadequate lying space or time in which the physical environment fails to provide the animal. Cow comfort plays an important role in the well being as well as maximizing production as an industry. Within many intensive production systems, it is very common to see limited space for resting, which can be associated with negative behaviors as not providing the appropriate space for the animal reduces resting and lying behavior, increasing irritability and the potential to act in aggressive behaviors. Although not all production systems provide limited space and time for lying, uncomfortable stalls are also known to be a major problem when it comes to lying behavior in cattle. Decreasing the quality of resting area for cows will decrease resting time, and increase the likelihood of stress, abnormal and aggressive behaviors as the

deprivation Deprivation or deprive may refer to: * Poverty, pronounced deprivation in well-being ** Objective deprivation or poverty threshold, the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country ** Relative deprivation, the lack of resources ...

of lying/resting behaviors is proven to affect responses within the

hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis The hypothalamus () is a part of the brain that contains a number of small nuclei with a variety of functions. One of the most important functions is to link the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus i ...

which is associated with chronic stress in the animal. Not only lying time and space act as important regulators of comfort induced aggression, but other environmental factors may play a role in the comfort of an animal.

Temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer. Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied o ...

has been shown to be a factor that influences the behavioral interactions between cattle, and it has been found that, by providing cows with the proper cooling environment or as heat could decrease aggressive interactions as cattle will have been shown to engage in aggressive behavior in order to gain access to a shaded and cattle with access to more shade are known to show reduced physiological and behavioral responses to heat.

Stress induced aggression

These are behaviors caused by some sort of stressor that can lead to aggressive advances towards themselves or other individuals. A stressor is an object or event that can cause a real or perceived threat internally or externally to an animal. Stressors are common in farm animals such as dairy cows as they live in a complex environment where there are many stressors including novel objects (new objects such as handlers, food, or group mates), social stimuli (different environments, new individuals), or restraint (physical restraint, moved to cubicles, transported). Dairy cows specifically have been known to be very sensitive to new, unfamiliar events or objects such as being around an unfamiliar person, or presented with a novel food item. Stress has extreme negative impacts on growth and reproduction in cattle, as the pituitary-adrenal system is very sensitive to different environmental stressors such as inadequate space, feed, poor quality housing, new objects or individuals, or new living/housing system

Pain induced aggression

Pain Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, ...

is defined as an effective state and can only be truly measured indirectly in both humans and animals, that may present some challenges in decision making regarding pain management. Many things can result in pain including

dehorning Dehorning is the process of removing the horns of livestock. Cattle, sheep, and goats are sometimes dehorned for economic and safety reasons. Disbudding is a different process with similar results; it cauterizes and thus destroys horn buds before ...

, tail docking, handling,

castrating Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which an individual loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical castration uses pharmaceu ...

, mastitis,

lameness A limp is a type of asymmetric abnormality of the gait. Limping may be caused by pain, weakness, neuromuscular imbalance, or a skeletal deformity. The most common underlying cause of a painful limp is physical trauma; however, in the absence ...

, confinement, transportation Lameness is a common issue seen in cattle, and may occur in facilities with poor management and housing systems, and inadequate handling skills. It is because of this issue that many cows find themselves spending a lot of time lying down, instead of engaging in both aggressive (head butting, vocalizing, pushing) and non aggressive behaviors (licking, walking) due to the pain.

Preventions

Techniques such as low stress handling (LSH) can be used as it provides silence, adequate restraint methods can help minimize stress levels in the animals. Flight zones should be considered when handling or moving cattle, as they have a blind spot and may get spooked easily if unaware if there is an individual around. Providing environments for cows in which minimize any environmental stressor can not only improve the wellbeing and welfare of the animal, but can also reduce aggressive behaviors. Regular examinations (physical and physiological) should be done to determine the condition of the cow, which could show signs of cuts, or

lesion A lesion is any damage or abnormal change in the tissue of an organism, usually caused by disease or trauma. ''Lesion'' is derived from the Latin "injury". Lesions may occur in plants as well as animals. Types There is no designated classifi ...

s, as well as the secretion or hormones inside the body such as

cortisol Cortisol is a steroid hormone, in the glucocorticoid class of hormones. When used as a medication, it is known as hydrocortisone. It is produced in many animals, mainly by the ''zona fasciculata'' of the adrenal cortex in the adrenal gland ...

. Cortisol can be measured through blood sampling, urine, saliva or heart rate to indicate stress level of animal. Assessing for lameness, as well as giving proper treatment depending on severity/location can include antibiotics, Using proper treatment/prevention for pain when lameness is examined, as well as procedures such as tail docking, dehorning, castrating, mastitis lameness etc. The primary treatment in lame cows is corrective hoof pairing, which provides draining of abscesses, fixing any structural issue with the hoof, and reducing weight baring problems, however if lesions are seen in cattle,

antibiotics An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention o ...

or other measures may have to be taken to reduce further infection/irritation. Setting breeding goals can be a potential way to select for desired temperamental traits, further decreasing the risk of raising aggressive cattle. Before this method of selection can be entirely accurate and safe, however, some tests should be done, such as behavior and temperament tests.{{Cite journal, last1=Gibbons, first1=J.M, last2=Lawrence, first2=A.B, last3=Haskell, first3=M.J, date=2009, title=Consistency of aggressive feeding behaviour in dairy cows, journal=Applied Animal Behaviour Science, volume=121, pages=1–7, doi=10.1016/j.applanim.2009.08.002

References

Ethology Cattle