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Individual differences in sociability and the trade-offs made by sheep grazing in a patchy environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2017

A.M. Sibbald  and
R.J. Hooper
A.M. Sibbald
Affiliation:
Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, AB15 8QH, United Kingdom
R.J. Hooper
Affiliation:
Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, AB15 8QH, United Kingdom
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Extract

In a patchy environment, sheep may have to make trade-offs between being close to companions and grazing the preferred vegetation. It has been demonstrated that individual differences in sociability, measured as the tendency to graze close to others in a group, can predict behaviour in a motivational conflict situation (Sibbald et al, 2000). An experiment was carried out, in which sheep with different sociability indices were compared in a test situation which required single animals to move away from the group in order to graze, but where stress due to physical separation was minimised.

Type
Theatre Presentations
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Science , Volume 2002 , 2002 , pp. 71
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Science 2002

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References

Sibbald, A.M., Smart, T.S. and Shellard, L.J.F. 1998. A method for measuring the social behaviour of individuals in a group: an example with sheep. Measuring Behavior ‘98. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research (ed. Noldus, L.P.J.J.), pp 260–261, Groningen, The Netherlands. (http://www.noldus.com/events/index.html)Google Scholar
Sibbald, A.M., Smith, D.J.F. and Hooper, R.J. 2000. Individual differences in sociability and their consequences for foraging behaviour in sheep. Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Science, p129.Google Scholar