In pursuit of “normal”: A review of the behaviour of cattle at pasture

One of the “Five Freedoms” proposed by the Farm Animal Welfare Council in Great Britain is that animals should be free to express normal behaviour. For various domesticated species, the study of still-existing wild ancestors has been one approach in the definition of normal. However, for domesticated cattle, no such wild ancestor exists, so the best that can be done is to study domesticated cattle in environments with little human interference. While several studies have been made of the behaviour of cattle under such conditions, no critical review of the literature has been published. This is the purpose of this paper. While it is surprising that no such review has been undertaken, given its usefulness in the study of the welfare of cattle, what is more surprising is that only 22 studies, published during the period 1927–2009, were considered for inclusion in the review. From the review, it can be concluded that cattle have quite an extensive repertoire of behaviour, comprising 40 identifiable categories and that, of all of the behaviours in their repertoire, grazing is the most common followed, generally, by ruminating and resting. In general, these three categories take up 90–95% of an animal's day. The review also showed that most grazing is performed during the hours of daylight, with very little grazing is observed at night. However, there were exceptions where considerable grazing was observed at night. Furthermore, the greater part of rumination occurred while animals were lying rather than standing and, although the information was scant, ruminating and resting tended to occur at night rather than during the day. Finally, cattle generally follow a diurnal rhythm characterised by peaks of grazing activity associated with sunrise and sunset.