Choice of attractive conditions by beef cattle in a Y-maze just after release from restraint

To provide useful information on how to moderate posthandling stress, the attractiveness of different conditions to beef cattle just after release from restraint was determined. Angus heifers were individually allowed to enter a choice area after 2 min of restraint in a squeeze chute and to choose between 2 pens. After the heifer had chosen a pen, it could freely access both test pens and the choice area for a further 5 min. In Exp. 1, each heifer was given 1 of the following choices: a pen with 3 familiar heifers (PEERS) vs. a pen with a pile of hay on a metal rack (FOOD; n = 34); PEERS vs. the bare pen (BARE; n = 34); and FOOD vs. BARE (n = 35). When the choice combination was PEERS vs. BARE, more heifers chose PEERS (P < 0.05). When the choice combination was PEERS vs. FOOD, more heifers than expected tended to choose PEERS (P < 0.10), whereas FOOD and BARE did not differ. The latency to choose either pen was shorter if PEERS was 1 of the 2 choices (P < 0.01). After choosing, more heifers entered the PEERS pen than the FOOD (P < 0.05) or BARE (P < 0.01) pens. In Exp. 2, another 86 heifers were given 1 of the following choices: a pen with a familiar handler standing inside (STI) vs. a pen with a novel object (NO; n = 29); a pen with the handler standing outside the pen (STO) vs. NO (n = 29); a pen in which the handler was sitting inside (SI) vs. NO (n = 28). Fewer heifers chose the pen with the human (STI, STO, and SI; all P < 0.01). Except for the choice of STO vs. NO, the number of heifers that had voluntarily chosen either pen was larger than expected (STI and SI; both P < 0.01). The number of times in which the NO pen was entered was greater than the STI and STO (P < 0.01), although the number of times in which the SI and NO pens were entered was not different. More heifers avoided the human, particularly a standing human. In conclusion, just after handling with restraint, returning cattle to the group of peers and not approaching the cattle needlessly should moderate their stress.