Phenomics

Defining dairy cow temperament traits using farmer interviews and behavioral testing

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Abstract

Temperament is an important but underutilized trait in dairy cattle breeding goals, with implications for farm profitability, labour efficiency, and animal welfare. As Swedish dairy production has transitioned from tie-stalls to loose-housing systems, cow behaviour has become increasingly relevant for safe and efficient management. Temperament influences how animals respond to handling and milking, and poor behavioural traits are associated with higher labour demands, increased risk of accidents, early culling, and production losses. Despite its importance, current national breeding evaluations rely on decreasing numbers of manually assessed temperament scores, which limits reliability. Automatically recorded behavioural data offer an alternative that can provide objective, continuous, and large-scale information on temperament. Integrating such data into genetic evaluations could substantially improve the accuracy of breeding values and allow breeding organizations to assess the economic value of selecting for favourable temperament. This project aims at developing and validating automatic temperament indicators using data generated from automatic milking systems. As a starting point the project aims to define what Swedish dairy farmers consider to be an optimal cow temperament. Because farmers and their staff interact with cows daily, their perspectives are essential for shaping relevant breeding goals. Farmers from 20 different herds representing diverse herd sizes, systems, and breeds were interviewed via phone or video. Herd sizes varied between approx. 50-300 milking cows. The main breeds were Swedish Holstein and Swedish Red. Most farms (n=14) used robot milking. Farmers were asked to describe behavioural traits they value, in their own words. The most common words used to describe desirable temperament was "calm" (13 of farmers). Four farmers emphasized activity and curiosity, and three farmers mentioned milkability and cows that are "uncomplicated" without specifying specific behaviors. All farmers mentioned fearfulness, kicking and aggressive behavior as undesirable. Based on the results of the interviews we performed behavior tests on four of the participating farms. The tests were intended to target the traits farmers had mentioned in the interviews, and consisted of human approach test, novel object test, response to human touch, and an overall assessment using the Welfare Quality Assessment protocol. Especially the human approach test showed high variability between farms, but also between individual cows. In the last part of the project, routinely recorded data from automated milking systems, such as teat cup attachment failures or handling time in automatic milking systems, will be analysed and correlated with behavioural test results to determine which automatically recorded variables best reflect cow temperament, the heritability of these traits and their correlation with the current breeding goal.

Keywords: 2026

How to Cite:

Nilsson, K., Fikse, F., Klingström, T., Fruscini, C. & Rydhmer, L., (2026) “Defining dairy cow temperament traits using farmer interviews and behavioral testing”, World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production Digital Archive 2026(1): 2286872. doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/wcgalp.24150

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