Vices or Behaviour abnormalities and its importance in animal husbandry

1. BEHAVIOUR ABNORMALITIES
AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN
LIVESTOCK HUSBANDRY
TAMILARASAN K
M – 5987
LPM SECTION
IVRI

2. INTRODUCTION
• Abnormal behaviour is defined as an untypical reaction to a
particular combination of motivational factors and stimuli.
• Much abnormal behaviour can be regarded as stress-coping
responses.
• Abnormal behaviour is generally often called as vices in animals.
• A vice is an undesirable quality in an animal or bad habit or
unnatural habit or undesirable habit of animal. The degree of this
undesirability may, however, vary considerably.
• Some vices are dangerous while some are injurious either to the
owner or to the animal or to both.

3. VICES IN CATTLE
• Eye rolling
• Tongue rolling
• Licking & eating own hair, wool
• Suckling Eating solid objects
• Inter-suckling by calves
• Inter-suckling by Adult animals
• Self sucking
Coprophagy
• Masturbation
• Overeating
• Head rubbing
• Kicking
• Butting

4. VICES
Sheep and Goat:
• Stealing young/ lamb
stealing
• Wool-pulling and wool
eating
• Eating solid objects
Vices – Swine
• Tail biting
• Belly nosing
• Anal massage
• Shan-chewing
• Drinker ressing
• Pen fouling
• Savaging
• Navel sucking

5. VICES IN CATTLE

6. EYE ROLLING
• The eyes are moved around in
the orbit at a time when no
visible object is present.
• Normally seen in calves
confined in crates and stand
immobile for extended period.

7. TONGUE ROLLING
• The tongue is extruded from the mouth
and moved by curling and uncurling
outside or inside the mouth with no solid
material present.
• This condition occurs in all ages and
breeds.
• Brown Swiss breed exhibit it most
frequently.
• It occurs most commonly immediately
before and after feeding in cattle.

8. TONGUE ROLLING
• Factors responsible for this vices may be hereditary, continuous
confinement, feeding of low roughages.
Management practices to prevent tongue rolling:
• Wind-sucking straps
• Insertion of a metal ring through the frenulum of the tongue.
• Provision of salt lick
• Provision of freedom of movement
• Isolation of affected animals
• Tongue-rolling cattle should not be used for breeding

9. LICKING AND EATING OWN HAIR
• Many young calves housed in individual crates, early weaning leads to
licking those parts of their bodies which they can reach, this results in
ingestion of large quantities of hair wick aggregates into hair balls or
bezoars in the rumen.
• This vice is more common in calves moved from individual pen to group
housing.

10. SUCKING AND EATING SOLID OBJECTS
• Recently weaned calves will often suck and lick the walls, bars of their pen.
This can be controlled by regular creosote paint of wood surface. Feeding
good quality concentrate and roughage will minimize the incidence.

11. LICKING
• Licking animal’s own body or solid object in the surroundings with the
same pattern of movement.
• Due to inadequate quantities of food, no teat from which to suck or
insufficient total sensory input. Common in calves- salt lick is best
remedy.

12. INTERSUCKING BY CALVES
• Calves separated from their
mothers suck and lick at their own
bodies, at objects in their pens and at
parts of the bodies of other calves.
• It is observed in dairy calves where
calves are bucket fed, grouped shortly
after birth and where purchased calves
are kept in groups.
• The commonly suck on the naval,
prepuce, scrotum, udder and ears of
other animals.

13. PREVENTION OF INTERSUCKING
• It can be controlled by feeding calves with automatic nursers with teats
and prolonging the feeding time.
• Sucking periods lasting approximately 30 min appear to eliminate
intersucking.
• Takes place during periods of idling by the herd. Increased provision of
roughage can be made in the diet and such roughage should be offered
during periods when idling occurs.
• Separating the calves after feeding, alternatively providing good food
and delaying grouping calves until they are more than 4 weeks of age.

14. INTERSUCKING OR MILK SUCKING BY
ADULT ANIMALS
• This behaviour involves a cow or bull sucking milk from the udder of a
cow.
• Cattle suck milk from herd mates and choose the same lactating animal.
• This vice may lead to loss of milk yield and damage to teat.
• Proper feeding management and herd supervision can minimize such
incidents.

15. SELF SUCKING
• Sucking her own milk is called self sucking.
• This can be prevented by applying to mouth a plate/ anti suckling
shield which will form a barrier between mouth and teats. It fits into
nostrils and in front of the mouth.
• Application of muzzle.
• Tying close to the ground.

16. COPROPHAGY:
• It is a vice of eating dung which may be due to bad weather, indigestion, half
starved condition and mineral deficiency.
PICA:
• The eating own excreta or in the pasture field, breaking and cutting of ropes.
This is mainly due to mineral deficiency.
MASTURBATION IN BULLS:
• This is a grave vice and endangers the utility of the bull. This is induced by
licking.

17. OVEREATING
• Common in horses and occasionally in cattle. Excess intake of grain.
Remedy:
• Feeding hay before grain feeding.
• Split feeding.
• Not treatable if hypothalamus is involved.

18. HEAD RUBBING
• Cattle which are confined to stalls for extended periods, such as winters, may
rub their heads repeatedly against some part of the stall.
• This behaviour is more noticeable in horned breeds and more in bulls than in
other breeds.
• In pigs: sometimes observed when they housed in a narrow single stall.
• Remedy: Application of suitable restraint imposed upon the affected
animals.

19. KICKING
• Act of self defence due to fear.
• This vice can be controlled
during milking with help of anti
kicking straps applied above the
hocks.
• Use squeeze restraint/ udder
kinch.
• Use milk man’s rope.
• Bulls are controlled by big rope
method.

20. PREVENTION OF KICKING

21. BUTTING
• Hurting another animal or human being with horns is a serious bad habit of
cattle.

22. VICES IN SHEEP AND
GOAT

23. STEALING YOUNG / LAMB STEALING:
• Pre-parturient ewes, cows and mares often approach, sniff and remain close to
the new born young of other members of the group.
• This leads to reduced maternal support to the young and it become weak.
• In lamb stealing, the foster mother may later reject her own lamb when it is
born or may have no colostrum left for it. In these situations lamb may often
die.
• This problem can be controlled by separating the ewe from the group before
and very soon after parturition.

24. WOOL-PULLING AND WOOL EATING
• Wool pulling is a form of abnormal behaviour which occurs in sheep
within restrictive enclosure and indoor management systems.
• Sometimes deficiency of roughage in the diet may cause wool eating.
• It can be prevented by reducing the stocking density in a pen by 50%.

25. WEAVING
• Rocking back and forth in a repetitive fashion that is correlated to
isolation or stall confinement, usually alleviated by pasture turnout possibly
a self-stimulating behavior.
• Problems with weaving can include weight loss and uneven hoof wear,
unnatural stress on the legs and lameness.
• Stop weaving by applying strap

26. WOOD CHEWING (LIGNOPHAGIA)
• Gnawing on wood out of hunger or boredom. This is not to be
confused with the more serious vice, cribbing.

27. CRIBBING (WINDSUCKING)
• When the equine grabs a board or other surface with its teeth, arches its
neck, and sucks in air.
• This can harm the teeth and may lead to colic. Cribbing can be caused
either by nervousness or boredom.
• Additional research suggests that cribbing increases salivation and may
reduce stomach discomfort. There is a direct correlation between diet
and cribbing, increasing hay in the ration or feeding more frequent meals
helps to reduce cribbing.
• Cribbing occurs in 2.4-8.3% depending on breed and management.

28. VICES IN HORSES

29. WALL KICKING
• Kicking the walls of its stall with hind legs.
• This raises the potential of damage both to the equine and to the barn.
• Usually this is caused by a lack of exercise and boredom.
• Wall-kicking is one habit that is often acquired by others in the barn once an
individual starts doing it.

30. STALL-WALKING OR FENCE-WALKING
• Like weaving, this is a repetitive movement, only the individual paces
compulsively.
• It is usually correlated with isolation or anxiety while awaiting feed.
• This habit can also lead to weight loss and lameness.

31. PAWING OR DIGGING
• The equine may paw with its front feet.
• This can lead to abnormal hoof wear and lameness, and may also
damage the flooring of the stall.
• An equine that paws can dig a noticeable hole in a dirt-floored barn in
a very short time

32. BITING
• A nervous or anxious equine may reach out of its stall to bite at passers-
by, human or animal.
• Box stall designs that keep the horse from reaching its head out prevent
harm to other animals, but some horses may attempt to bite a handler when
the person enters the stall.

33. BOLTING FEED:
Eating food too fast without adequate chewing. This can potentially lead to
certain problems in the digestive system including choke and colic.
MASTURBATION:
A male horse, either a stallion or a gelding, will use his abdominal muscles to
rhythmically bounce his penis against his belly.
Previously believed to be a vice caused by boredom, confinement, or discomfort,
masturbation by stallions and geldings is now viewed as a normal behaviour.

34. CONCLUSION
• Abnormal behaviours which reduce the welfare of the animals and
production capacity of the animals are identified and take necessary
measures to remove that abnormalities.
• Ethogram may also used to diagnose the abnormal behaviour
compared with the normal behaviour.
• First we should search for the causes of that abnormality and will
alleviate it accordingly.
• Environment in which the animal is living is the key factor for the
abnormality of behaviour so we should monitor the environment
surrounding the animal.