Influence of weather on the behaviour of outdoor-wintered beef cattle in Scandinavia

The aim of the present investigation was to study the effect of weather and available protection on the behaviour of outdoor-wintered beef cattle (Bos taurus). A herd of 78–85 cattle head was studied during four winter months in the Southwest of Sweden. Protection was offered by coniferous forest situated on and around the 12 ha pasture, which we divided into protection categories. During 240 h we observed 10 cows and 10 heifers as focal animals (each 3 h/month) during day time and adjusted observation times to the altitude of the sun. Close to the animals and at an unprotected spot of the pasture we measured temperature, wind speed and solar radiation and combined these variables to a single measure called Wind Chill Temperature (WCT). During observations the animals were in the forest in 12.4%, near protection in 10.4% and without protection in 77.2% of the recordings. During precipitation, i.e. rain, snow and hail, the animals frequented the forest 2.71 times more often than during dry weather; however, only in 17.0% of the hours with precipitation the focal animals were in the forest. In 75.0% of the observation hours the WCT in the animals’ surrounding was at least 2 °C higher than at the most exposed spot of the pasture. Without precipitation the animals were lying less, feeding more and ruminating less at low WCT. During precipitation they were lying more, feeding less and ruminating more at low WCT. The lower the WCT and the higher the wind speed the more subjects there were within a 5 m-radius around the focal animal. The results indicate that the cattle adjusted their behaviour to both WCT and precipitation, that they were able to find warmer microclimates even without always having to frequent protecting objects, and that conspecifics were used as protection.