Objectives |
It is generally agreed that the combination of a certain production system and the day to day management plays a major role for animal welfare in a dairy cattle herd. It is therefore necessary to develop methods for assessing animal welfare at herd level to be used as a management tool. A relevant welfare assessment system should describe the welfare of animals in the herd during a time period by welfare indicators in a manner that is comprehensible to the farmer, allows the farmer to assess the development through time and act accordingly. Welfare assessment methods typically involve indicators based on observations on the systems and systems management as well as animal behaviour observations and observations on health problems in the animals. Traditional milking implies physical contact between cow and stock person twice a day. As a consequence cows are expected to queue up for milking which may affect their resting behaviour, social behaviour and their health and consequently their welfare. The effect of the cow-machine interaction at automatic milking on animal welfare is unknown. Furthermore, cows are expected to be active and to be milked in the middle of the night, as well as at traditional milking hours. This requires a special light program, which may affect the resting behaviour, social behaviour and the health, and consequently affect their welfare. The objectives of this work package are therefore:
Methodology and study materials |
The work package will consist of two projects with a common evaluation phase during the third project year. The first project is carried out by partner 3 and is defined into three tasks: development of welfare indicators based on regular clinical examinations, development of welfare indicators based on behaviour studies, and finally evaluation of a full welfare assessment system as a decision support tool in AMS herds. The second project is carried out by partner 6 and aims at the establishment of the relations between behavioural, physiological, metabolic, health and performance parameters.
1. Development of welfare indicators based on clinical observations. Welfare indicators based on regular clinical examinations (4 times a year), will focus on: claw and leg disorders, skin lesions, udder infections, body condition, clinical diseases. Furthermore, data regarding clinical and sub clinical mastitis, is included (e.g. milk parameters from the AMS, somatic cell count, veterinary treatment).
2. Development of welfare indicators based on behaviour studies Indicators, based on behavioural observations will be developed, such as: usage of available area, diurnal variation in the milking pattern, resting behaviour (synchronisation), behaviour related to posture changes, reactions to milking (flinch, steps, kicking), specific behaviour observations related to heifer introduction to AMS, fear reaction test (animal human relationships) based on avoidance/flight distance of individual animals in the home environment, social behaviour focusing on various resources such as feed, water and the milking unit. Together with the welfare indicators based on regular clinical examinations, a full welfare assessment protocol is developed. This protocol will be available at month 12.
3. Evaluation of a full welfare assessment system The developed welfare assessment system is applied on 8 AMS herds during one year (months 13-24). This will be carried out in close co-operation with the work in workpackage 8. The results will be described in an annual report for presenting the welfare assessment to the farmer.The report should contain possibilities to give the farmer an overview and an evaluation. The report should also give the farmer enough detailed documentation to accept the results as a consequence of the data recorded on the farm. The report is presented to the farmer and possibilities for improvement are discussed. Finally the applicability of a welfare assessment system in an AMS-herd is evaluated using three different approaches.
4. Relations between behaviour, physiology, metabolism, health and performance. In month 1-12 relations between behaviour, physiological, metabolic, health and performance parameters will be established, as well as the daily variation on each parameter. The systems allow automatic recording (identification, amount, duration, time, position) of individual animals with regard to social, resting or walking behaviour, feed and water intake, milk yield, live weight, heart rate. In cooperation with physiologists, oxytocin, prolactin and cortisol levels are planned to be determined and related to the status in the milking unit, at gates and social interactions. The daily activity and rhythm and its variation will be analysed and related to ranking order, age, production level, health disorders and oestrus. Visual observation (behaviour studies) will be performed during 2 consecutive days/month on 10 focal cows, selected among the highest and lowest ranked cows, as determined among all cows succeeding each other at the entrance to the milking unit and feeding stations. In months 13-24 the relations will be further studied in a full scale AMS unit for 60 cows with separate areas for resting, feeding and milking within the barn. The barn is built and equipped specially for research purpose. In the final year, the final publication will be presented.
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© Animal Sciences Group -
Wageningen UR. Last update:
20-02-2008 10:03. |
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