Paving the way for Big Team Science in farm animal behaviour and welfare research: The ManyGoats initiative

Abstract

Farm animal behaviour and welfare research may have limited generalisability if conducted on groups of animals characterised by a restricted set of individual factors and living conditions. In this sense, due to the contextual idiosyncrasies of individual testing sites, the results of individual studies could only be valid for the particular group of animals and thus may not always be reproducible. However, robust results are necessary to ensure that outcomes are broadly relevant, as this is vital if such results are intended to contribute to improved husbandry and management conditions, and ultimately, better animal welfare policies. So-called Big Team Science approaches (hereafter BTS), which pool resources across large numbers of researchers to facilitate data collection from larger and more diverse samples, can offer a resource-efficient opportunity to tackle this problem and increase the external validity of scientific results. Here, we discuss the benefits and challenges associated with BTS approaches in farm animal behaviour and welfare research. As contextual factors vary considerably across species kept for different products and in diverse husbandry settings, we conducted a snapshot review focusing on one of these species, the domestic goat ( Capra hircus ). Here, we found that the majority of studies were conducted at single sites and on only one breed. Finally, we introduce the ManyGoats initiative, which seeks to increase the generalisability of findings in research on goat behaviour and welfare by implementing identical experimental protocols and simultaneously testing animals, including multiple breeds, across different facilities around the world.