Please cite this article as: Doyle, Rebecca E., Broster, John C., Barnes, Kirsty, Browne, William J., Temperament, age and weather predict social interaction in the sheep flock.Behavioural Processes http://dx.doi.org/10. 1016/j.beproc.2016.08.004 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
Highlights: Sheep appear to have temperament-related social preference for specific individuals within a flock. Age, rainfall and temperature all affected social interactions of the sheep flock. Vocalisations and movement scores in the isolation box test are well correlated over time, but the two types of behaviours were poorly correlated with each other, suggesting they reflect different things. Multiple Membership Multiple Classification modelling is a useful way to analyse social structures of the flock and make predictions on how animal or environment circumstances affect social behaviour.
AbstractThe aim of the current study was to investigate the social relationships between individual sheep, and factors that influence this, through the novel application of the statistical multiple