MANYGOATS - A network to promote open and reproducible research on goat behaviour and welfare

Most studies on goat behaviour have been conducted on groups of animals characterised by specific individual factors and living conditions. 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; this is vital if such results are intended to contribute towards improving husbandry and management conditions, and thus ultimately bettering animal welfare. Multi-site approaches can offer a resource-efficient opportunity to tackle this problem and increase the external validity of scientific results. For this reason, we formed the ManyGoats network; our aim is to improve the generalisability of findings in goat behaviour and cognition research by implementing identical experimental protocols to simultaneously test animals across different facilities around the world. The network will also aim at improving training and knowledge transfer in goat behaviour research and will adhere to Open Science principles, making our work transparent, inclusive and readily accessible. To date, the ManyGoats network consists of more than 30 researchers across five continents, with expertise in goat behaviour, animal welfare, veterinary medicine, statistical modelling and animal ethics, but more researchers/labs are invited to join the network. In our first proof-of-concept study (‘ManyGoats1’), we will focus on goats' behavioural response to humans and/or handling by humans, and whether the attentional state of the person handling the goats affects their behaviour. To increase heterogeneity in our sample and identify factors that contribute to behavioural variation, we will test a diverse range of subjects (i.e. both sexes, different ages, goats used for dairy, meat, fibre and companionship) in different living conditions (e.g. lab, farm, zoo settings). Currently, we are developing the ManyGoats1 test protocol and anticipate starting data collection in the second semester of 2022.