Sustainable Livestock Systems

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Research Interests

I have a long-standing research interest in maternal behaviour, mother-offspring interactions and offspring development, which has involved research in a variety of large and small animal models (sheep, pigs, horses, cattle, mice and guinea pigs).

This research has been focused on applied questions: initially looking at the impact of maternal undernutrition in pregnancy on muscle development during my PhD, and more recently concentrating on impacts of environmental and genetic factors in neonatal survival and development.

Current research areas include the impact of early pregnancy nutrition on behavioural development and stress responsiveness in sheep, the potential to select animals for improved lamb vigour and survival, and the consequences of a difficult birth for subsequent health and welfare in cattle and sheep.

Alongside the more applied aspects of this area I have also investigated more strategic questions: the role of physiological and neuroendocrine factors in mediating individual differences in maternal behaviour; the impact of variation in maternal care on offspring behavioural development and the physiology of foetal and neonatal development.

An emerging research area is the welfare of extensively managed animals, which has been relatively neglected in comparison to intensively managed animals. This has focused mainly on sheep, and the ability to identify welfare problems and understand the welfare needs of this species. Current research in this area includes a collaborative project (funded by Defra) to develop methods to assess on farm welfare in hill farms, and to investigate the impact of stockmanship on sheep welfare.

Research Projects

• Mother-offspring interactions
  Scottish Government WP2.4 Sheep Nutrition
  Assessing the effects of early life nutrition on subsequent health, behaviour and welfare of sheep (in collaboration with Prof. Cheryl Ashworth, Dr John Rooke and Dr Hans Erhard at Macaulay Institute).
• Scottish Government WP2.4 Sheep Genetics
  Development of breeding strategies to include measures of lamb vigour to increase lamb survival.
• Defra LINK: TM-QTL and meat yield in sheep
  Assessment of the welfare consequences (lambing ease and lamb vigour) of breeding for specific muscling quantitative trait loci (in collaboration with Drs Lutz Bünger, Nicola Lambe and Jenny MacFarlane at SAC, and Roslin Institute, IRS and industry partners).
• Defra LINK: Welbredcow (funding agreed)
  Assessment of the long term health and welfare consequences for the dairy cow and calf of a difficult calving (in collaboration with Drs Marie Haskell, Dave Roberts, Eileen Wall, Mike Coffey at SAC and industry partners).
• Extensive Animal Welfare
  Scottish Government WP2.4 Animal Based Priorities
  Taking an ecological approach to understand the welfare needs and priorities of sheep and beef cattle (in collaboration with Drs Simon Turner and Colin Morgan).
• Defra: Impact of labour on welfare in extensive sheep flocks.
  Assessing welfare and how use and quality of labour can affect sheep welfare on extensive hill flocks (in collaboration with Dr Alistair Stott and other colleagues at SAC, Macaulay Institute and ADAS, and participating farms in Scotland, England and Wales).
• ITI Techmedia: Animal Health monitoring programme in beef cattle
  (in collaboration with colleagues at SAC and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Science).

Teaching

Current PhD students

• Tamsin Coombs ‘The effect of selection for lean tissue growth on muscle fibre characteristics in lambs, and the implications for welfare’ funded by BBSRC in collaboration with QMS (Profs Cheryl Ashworth and Charlotte Maltin).
• Stephanie Matheson ‘Genetic selection for health and welfare traits in sheep’ funded by Genesis Faraday in collaboration with the Suffolk Sheep Society (Drs Lutz Bünger and Jos Houdijk)
• Susanne Grund ‘Best use of labour to enhance animal welfare and productivity in extensive sheep farming systems’ (2nd Supervisor) funded by MLC (Principal supervisor: Dr Alistair Stott).
• Hanna Miedema ‘Parturition behaviour in dairy cows’ (2nd Supervisor) funded by commercial funder (Principal supervisor Dr Alastair MacRae, R(D)SVS).
• Sophie Hild (thesis committee) in collaboration with Dr Adroaldo Zanella, Norwegian Veterinary School, Oslo.

Other
I teach on the MSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare at University of Edinburgh and supervise MSc dissertation projects. I also lecture on undergraduate Animal Science degree courses and supervise BSc projects.