Cows use tools to preen
Beef cattle use tools to keep their coats healthy, says an Australian researcher, suggesting they are more than all brawn and no brains.
Animal behaviour scientist Bob Kilgour, who works for the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, observed the grooming behaviour of various breeds of beef cattle at pasture on a number of properties over several days.
He found they spend about 3% of their day grooming and preening themselves, even in the absence of parasites.
They mainly use their tongues and hind hooves to groom the rear end of their bodies, Kilgour says.
But they also use inanimate objects like trees, branches, fence posts and stumps to get at areas they can't reach, he says.
"They'll walk up to fallen tree limbs which have protruding branches and groom around their eyes," he says.
"So they're making very finely controlled motor movements to groom around sensitive parts of their body."
Kilgour will tell the Australasian Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour conference in Sydney this week that this deliberate choice of different kinds of objects suggests they are being used as tools.
He says this is a bold suggestion because the definition of tool use conventionally relies on an ability to hold and manipulate objects.
"These are animals that can't pick things up and manipulate them, but nonetheless they are making decisions about what they are going to use to groom their bodies," he says.
"I'm postulating this could redefine our idea of tool use.
"It's difficult to relate this to intelligence but I'd just like to say there's a lot more going on up there than we really know about."
Comparisons with similar species
Kilgour compared grooming behaviour of beef cattle with undomesticated, but related, species including bison, water buffalo, banteng and eland.
He found similar grooming patterns.
This suggests an evolutionary purpose for grooming, Kilgour says. For example, maintaining the integrity of their coat may protect against invasion by parasites, bacteria or grass seeds.
"If you find this behaviour occurs in closely related species you can say this confers some survival advantage on animals, therefore it's a necessary behaviour," he says.
"So in production systems, like feedlots, where we try to stop animals grooming because we don't want to push the fence posts over, we may be thwarting what is a valuable natural behaviour."
He says attempts to prevent grooming may therefore be misguided and a denial of the animal's right to express normal behaviour, one of the central elements of animal welfare.