Dec. 22, 2005 — Recent studies on leadership in cows and other grazing herbivores suggest that intelligence, inquisitiveness, confidence, experience and good social skills help to determine which animals will become leaders within herds.

The findings suggest that, at least among these animals, individuals are not necessarily "born leaders," and that bullying, selfishness, size and strength are not recognized as suitable leadership qualities.

"The fact that in groups of animals of different age, leaders are amongst the oldest animals suggests that it's not innate, but the result of previous experience," said Bertrand Dumont, lead author of a recent Applied Animal Behavior Science paper on leadership in a group of grazing heifers.

Dumont is a researcher at INRA, the national institute of agricultural research in Saint-Genès-Champanelle, France.

He added, "Usually leadership and dominance are not correlated. In other words, leaders are not the strongest animals."

Dumont and his team observed a group of 15 two-year-old heifers at a farm in France. During the day, the cows were allowed to graze on a rectangular plot of cocksfoot-covered land that was separated from another plot by an alleyway.

This second plot was planted with patches of ryegrass, which the cows particularly like to eat.

Whenever the herd was allowed access to this new feeding site, cow #7 usually was the first to investigate. When she was with the herd and then moved toward the new food site again, the other cows appeared to acknowledge her judgment and followed behind her in distinct social groupings of three or so cows.

Dumont told Discovery News that affinities probably exist between particular animals, and indicated that #7 might have had past success at leading the herd to new food sites.

He explained that "it's adaptive to the animals to follow successful leaders, as this will improve their own food research success."

Get More News: