Poster 20

Highland Cattle calves are born outdoors, live in interaction with dams, and communicate with other calves and cows of their herd. It is difficult to take care of free animals unless they are easily caught and habituated to humans. Their treatment must be easy and safe for humans and they should not experience fear stress due to humans. A procedure to habituate Highland Cattle calves to humans evolved with four years' experimentation on one farm by one male human handler.

The procedure is modelling the behaviour of the dam to its calf during bonding. She vocalises frequently and licks the head of the calf intensively. The calf becomes fond of dam's touch, voice and smell. The aim is to habituate daily the calf similarly to rubbing touch of human hands, voice, and smell starting straight after birth. The dams trust in humans is helpful. The calf is fearless when it allows human to scratch itself without escaping. The human must approach animals peacefully and patiently without any frightening or enforcement. A wooden stick helped to better reach and scratch animals.

Data includes results of 18 bull and 20 heifer calves, from 14 dams and 4 sires. In 24 cases, they were fearless and easy to handle all the time. Fearful 8 heifer and 6 bull calves got little or unpleasant handling during first weeks. Dam did not permit human to touch her calf or the calf got another reason to avoid humans. Scared calves were fearless generally at the age of 18 to 60 days. During early experiments, four calves with aggressive dams got minor manipulation and needed from 110 to 197 days to overcome their fear. Fearful calves will finally accept human approaching attempts because they are curious and will learn by example of the fearless companion calves.