INTERVENORS IN AGONISTIC INTERACTIONS AMONGST DOMESTICATED GOATS

Social behaviour was observed in individually marked goats in two herd s. The goats from one herd (n = 98) were horned, those of the other he rd (n = 83) were polled. By recording agonistic interactions within th e herds, a dominance index was determined for each animal. In both her ds, intervention took place. Intervention is defined as one animal pus hing in between two fighters, and thus ending the fight. More cases of intervention took place per individual animal amongst the horned goat s than amongst the polled ones. Goats which intervened in fights on se veral occasions usually had a high dominance index. Members of the her d which were observed intervening only once had an average dominance i ndex in both herds of almost 0.5. In some cases, goats very low in the rank order intervened a fight. Only rarely did the interveners have a lower dominance index than the two fighters. In 103 cases, the direct dominance relationship between a fighting animal and the intervenor w as known. In 95 cases (92.2%), the intervenor was dominant to the herd member in this fight and in just eight cases (7.8%), it was subordina te. It could not be determined what advantage the intervenor gained fr om its activity. It is possible that, at least in certain cases, a par ticularly relationship existed between the intervenor and one of the f ighters.