Many people drive past cattle having their little paddock meetings and some may even wonder what they are conversing about...

Yeppoon's Kym Patison has taken this sense of wonder a whole lot further, using close observation and 'proximity logger' collars to better understand the social interaction of small herds.

Kym Patison in the field and images of the proximity loggers

While her research is at the fundamental 'understanding' level, it could lead to farm techniques which benefit productivity and animal welfare while reducing environmental impacts. Kym is also interested in adapting the proximity logging gear to gain insights into the timing of mating events.

"We're using a UHF transmitting device called a proximity logger to record whenever the cattle come within 4m of each other, and use this data as a measure of social interaction.  The loggers are stand-alone devices and don't require observers to be present.  Cattle are intrigued by our presence and do change their behaviour when we're around." 

Kym's journey to CQUniversity Rockhampton Campus has had a consistent theme: wanting to be close to cattle. 

She grew up on a dairy farm in Victoria and started tertiary studies in Melbourne with an agricultural science degree, with honours.

At first this took her into crop science but she managed to get back into a cattle role as a dairy pasture research field officer, looking at growing more on-farm produce, only to find it was not challenging enough.

Kym managed to secure a scholarship to study for her PhD via the University of Melbourne while researching for the CSIRO and she subsequently moved to Rockhampton to work at the Belmont Research Farm.

Since the CSIRO has wound down its Rockhampton office, Kym has moved across to take up casual work at CQUniversity's Centre for Environmental Management. She has been helping her research co-supervisor Dr Dave Swain to crunch data on bison behaviour (gathered in the USA) while completing the write-up stage for her cattle behaviour doctorate.

Kym and her builder husband have been enjoying the 'outdoor-life' opportunities of the Capricorn Coast Since moving up from Victoria, so beef cattle could continue to take precedence over dairy cows as potential research subjects.