WESTERN PRODUCER — Cattle behave a lot like people. They have a herd social organization and hierarchy.
It’s called the bunt order, which many experienced cattle handlers use to their advantage when working cattle. It’s also known as ranking or pecking order.
Using the bunt order can improve the time it takes to work cattle while being cost effective.
“Cattle are most afraid of pressure,” said Steve Langrell, of Woodlands, Man.
“If we learn how to position ourselves while applying and releasing pressure correctly, we can speed up processing times without the need for a large investment in time or money,” said the cattle handling expert with Arrowquip.
Cattle naturally establish a bunt order and maintain it by bunting other cattle. It’s first seen in calves as they bunt their mothers’ udders to stimulate milk flow.
This leads calves to eventually bunt the flanks of their dams during play as they learn social skills within the herd.
Bunting in mature animals can occur in play, or aggressive behaviour used to establish hierarchy. Lower-ranking cattle may use bunting as a defence against a more dominant animal.
Handlers should watch cattle who bunt during conflicts.
“Recognizing signs of antagonistic behaviour toward handlers, including threats, displays and retreats, is important for personal safety while working cattle. Cattle that are aggressive towards handlers may bunt, kick or crush,” said Langrell.
Left to their own instincts, cattle naturally select groups. Forcing them into different groups can increase tension in the herd. Natural social organization has cows and calves in one group, bachelors in another, and bulls independent. Groupings tend to be smaller compared to handler-created groups.
“It’s important for the handler to be aware of bunting, and provide enough space for subordinate cattle to avoid the alpha cattle,” said Langrell.
Several factors influence the bunt order:
- height and weight
- age
- sex and breed
- horned versus polled
- territorial behaviour
Studies show that weight, age and horns are characteristics that lead to a higher ranking in the order.
Joe Stookey, professor emeritus at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, said age seems to be most important.
“Size can follow and certainly the presence of horns. Horned animals can rise in a rank order higher and quicker than polled animals,” said Stookey, who is also an applied animal behaviourist and Speckle Park producer.
In general, older animals outrank younger ones.
“If they’re in an established herd and they’re born into the herd, those young animals are going to respect the older animals and rise up, and only when they get a little bit of age, and recognize that they’re maybe bigger, would they start to push older animals around,” said Stookey.
However, larger animals brought into the herd might challenge the existing social order through bunting.
Subordinate cattle will submit, flee or pivot to a head-to-head position when being bunted.
Once the order is established, it rarely changes. That can be an advantage as a handling tool.
“Watch the stature of animals during bunting, and you will note those with an alpha stance versus those with a subordinate and defensive stature,” said Langrell.
Cattle higher in the bunt order move near the front of the group when the herd is travelling or foraging. Cattle follow cattle, which is apparent in how they make trails.
“You’ll see them go into water. There’ll be single file behind each other, but there doesn’t seem to be a rank order to that,” said Stookey.
“A higher ranking animal can cut in front of another animal. It can go where it wants when it wants. But I don’t see that the high ranking animals are the ones that lead that trail.
“There’s some work that shows in a herd grazing situation, high ranking animals are in the middle and not on the periphery edge, which makes sense. They get the advantageous spot because they’re high ranking and the best position would be in the middle of the herd, not on the outskirts,” he added.
So, when handlers move cattle, the dominant animals will often be in the middle, with less dominant ones at the front. In this situation, subordinate cattle are also behind those higher in the bunt order.
“It’s important for handlers not to pressure the cattle at the back, as this will cause them to flee, or push on lead cattle ahead of them and create uncontrolled flow or momentum. Uncontrolled momentum can give you damaged cattle, damaged yards and damaged people,” Langrell said.
Added Stookey, “often cattle will move and follow each other very nicely. If you push cattle too hard, they recognize they can’t go forward, so they’re going to spin around and try to run past you or escape.
“We often see people get too close, push too hard on the back, and then animals start squirting out. They don’t want to invade the space of higher ranking animals and they know they’re in the vulnerable position.”
Alpha cattle move around less at feed and water troughs, and cattle lower in the bunt order move more frequently to avoid conflicts. “Ranking animals is what dominance is all about. It’s priority access to resources. So if you’ve got limited bunk space, limited water space, limited shade, any of those resources, the dominant animals are going to get to it first and maintain it,” said Stookey.
He has also observed that lower ranking cattle related to higher ranking ones are less likely to be pushed aside.
“If you watch displacements at a hay bunker or water, they’re less likely to displace their own offspring, even if they’re a few years old and not a calf anymore.
“They have great memory and recognition. So you wean a heifer at seven, eight months, and it doesn’t come back into the herd until it’s a yearling or more, she’ll still remember it and show preferential treatment to that offspring around resources,” said Stookey.
When new cattle are introduced, they are usually initially submissive.
“In some cases, aggressive behaviour escalates for the first 24 hours, and then new hierarchies form within three days. After cattle have acclimated, bunting may reorganize the social structure of the herd. If cattle have been in the same group, separated, and then re-grouped, they will maintain their original bunt order,” said Langrell.
That doesn’t mean everyone is friendly.
“It just means that the low ranking animals know how to avoid (dominant ones). They don’t want to get in another scrap because they know they’re going to lose,” said Stookey.
New females, brought in to improve genetics, will be stressed because of their lower rank.
“Even if you see that it looks calm, those animals are treated as outsiders for years. I’ve seen it. It’s absolutely phenomenal how long that can last where resident animals do not like the new intruders,” said Stookey.
“If there’s only one or two, that’s even worse. If you brought in a whole group of young heifers, they’ll eventually intermingle and become part of the herd.
“I have often said that introducing females into a herd, they may not display their full genetic potential to the point if they had stayed in their natal herd, because they’ll just be a little more stressed, they’ll always be at the butt end of aggression of the other animals in the herd.
“Sometimes it’s disappointing for producers, ‘oh, I just bought this high-powered female. She’s not as good as the ones in the herd.’ That’s because she’s low ranking and she’s always at the mercy of everyone else in there.”
Hormones also play a role in bunt order. Cattle in heat exhibit more alpha behaviours, and those that are pregnant show fewer. Cattle that are sick also exhibit less dominance. Handlers should watch the herd for changes in bunt order as an early sign of illness or pregnancy.
Bulls are naturally dominant over cows, but each sex forms hierarchies differently. Cows will typically maintain their social organization between pastures with little disruption.
“They sort of know each other, they know the rank, and they’ll find that environment and investigate it, and accept it without a lot of aggression,” said Stookey.
Bulls can settle down and winter together with little fighting but spring and new pasture brings disruption.
“You move those bulls to a new pasture in the spring and it’s on. They’re fighting each other like crazy because they’re very territorial animals. They have to re-establish who gets the best territory and who doesn’t,” he said.
Stookey noted breed has a role in an animal’s ability to climb to a higher rank, with Angus generally dominant over Herefords.
