RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RANK ORDER AND PRODUCTIVE PARAMETERS IN VERATA GOATS DURING MILKING

The hierarchic behaviour of 71 goats of the Verata breed from two inde pendent flocks on two different farms (no.(1) = 34 and no.(2) = 37) wa s studied during the milking-period of a year. Two statistical procedu res: canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) and a log-linear model we re used. In the CCA, the total frequencies of each goat in each of the 12 positions at tile milking stalls during 210 days of lactation were computed as original variables. Canonical variables were the average values of dairy milk production, proportion of protein and proportion of fat. The first two CCA axes accounted for proportionately 0.72 of t he variance. The first axis showed the effect of rank order (V-1 = 0.4 5) and the second axis the variability between animals for the same gr oup of hierarchy (V-2 = 0.27). The first position (AC(1) = 0.58; AC(2) = 0.23) and the last position (AC(1) = 0.11; AC(2) = 0.26) of the mil king stalls were in absolute contributions the most significant in the distribution of tile four observed groups of hierarchy, as defined by their frequency of access to the first position. Two parameters were highly correlated with both axes: milk protein content (r(1) = -0.8; r (2) = 0.9) and the day milk production (r(1) = 0.6; r(2) = 0.5). These results showed a direct relationship between rank order and milk prod uction, whereas the variability in each group was best defined by the protein content. The log-linear model showed that goats of lactation n umbers one, two and three have a similar behaviour with respect to the ir locations at the milking stalls, being distributed more randomly (< (a)over cap(1)> = 0.68 < <(a)over cap(2)> = 0.7 < <(a)over cap(3)> = 0 .71) than goats of a lactation number four (<(a)over cap(4)> = 2.95). This effect could be a consequence of two different but related factor s: either the animals develop a preference for a particular position o ver time, or that animals in their fourth lactation showed a more stab le behaviour pattern which affected their body condition.