Farm animal behaviour - Ingvar Ekesbo

Animal behaviour is the basis for ascertaining their welfare and is a topic of ever growing importance. This textbook is organised into three sections covering all major farm animals of the world, both mainstream and specialist: large farm animal species (horses, cattle, swine, sheep and goats), poultry and farmed birds and non-domesticated animals such as deer. Each chapter describes the elements of behaviour of a particular species in a clear and uniform format. Background to domestication, innate and learnt behaviour, social behaviour, mating behaviour, activity patterns, senses, behaviour in the young animal, vision and hearing are all covered for each species. Understanding of ethological knowledge is both a necessary aid for getting correct diagnoses, but also for the assessment of health and welfare in the single animal or a group of animals, making the book valuable for veterinary practitioners as well as students at university and tertiary level.

As professor in Animal Hygiene at the Swedish Agricultural University's veterinary faculty, Ingvar Ekesbo, DVM, PhD, was deeply interested in research and education regarding the relationship farm animal environment and animal health. He got deep practical experience of animal husbandry through part time clinical practice during forty years. He introduced ethology as discipline in the Swedish veterinary curriculum which led to the establishment in 1987 of a chair in ethology at his department, one of the first at any veterinary faculty.
After his retirement he has been continuing research, education and consultancy. Ekesbo has been president of the International Society for Animal Hygiene, the International Society for Applied Ethology, Swedish representative in Council of Europe when the Farm Animal Welfare Convention was elaborated 1971-1976, and, member, and several years chairman, in the Council's Standing Committee for Farm Animal Welfare 1979-1998.