A continuous recording approach to qualitative behaviour assessment in dairy buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis)

a b s t r a c t In order to develop a method suitable for a continuous qualitative evaluation of ani- mal behaviour while it changes during the observation period, two recently described techniques, the Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA) and the Temporal Dominant Behavioural Expression (TDBE), derived by the Temporal Dominance of Sensations, were used in combination and applied to 8 Mediterranean buffalo heifers. Animals were sub- jected to two isolation tests lasting 150 s each. One consisted in isolating individual animals from the rest of the group in the indoor part of the home pen, the other in leading ani- mals individually to an outdoor paddock, which was novel to the animals. The behaviour of the animals was video-recorded and the resulting 16 video clips were assessed by a twelve-member trained panel with previous experience in animal behaviour observation. The TDBE allowed the QBA to be performed continuously (C-QBA) during the observation period on a pre-determined list of six behavioural descriptors. Data were subjected to anal- ysis of variance using observer (n = 12), replication (n = 4), animal (n = 16) and the first order interactions as factors. Changes of behavioural expressions during the test were assessed by dividing it into three intervals of 50 s and using the � 2 one-sample test to check the