Animal health can present economic and animal welfare concerns for dairy farmers. However, it is unknown whether changes in behaviour as a result of sickness have long-term effects, and whether there is a relationship between the social rank of cows in the herd at a moment in time and the medical treatment history of these cows. The behaviour of 100 high-yielding cows in the waiting area (collecting yard) before the milking parlour was studied for five milking sessions to assess the interactions between the cows, as the cows waited to be milked. The cows were filmed, and the interactions between cows were recorded using an ethogram. The summated social rank score of each cow was compared with its medical treatment history. In our analysis, a positive relationship was found between medical treatment history and social rank, however this association was discounted when age was accounted for. When a subsample of cows older than 4.0 years was analysed to examine the relationship between social rank and medical treatment history in older cows, no significant correlation existed. These results suggest that the relationship between social rank and medical treatment history identified in the analysis is predominately an effect of age. This finding is contradictory to the hypothesis that ‘a higher historical level of medical treatments, and the disruption and setbacks associated with these disease conditions, would result in a lower position in the social rank.’ This preliminary study reports the findings from one particular herd, and across one relatively short time span, and because associations between treatment history and behaviour may be of interest in management decisions for producers, it is recommended that further investigation of this subject is carried out.
Animal health issues are a problem on many dairy farms, and much is already known about clinical treatments and the behaviour of sick animals. Animal health issues can influence behaviour seen around the milking parlour, but less is known about the relationship between the number of previous medical treatments and the queuing to be milked, the 'milking order'. Information was collected on five afternoon milking sessions, the individual cows' age and the medical treatment history of each cow in a group of 100 cows. The question addressed was whether the age and the medical treatment history of each cow in the herd affected its milking order. In addition, milking order was tested day to day, and was found to be consistent. A significant positive correlation was found between medical treatment history and milking order rank, meaning that cows with a higher medical treatment history tended to enter the milking parlour later than cows with a lower medical treatment history. In contrast with this finding, it was found that older cows were more likely to enter the milking parlour early when compared to younger animals, a finding which is supported by previous studies. These somewhat contradictory effects of (a) age and (b) medical treatment history on milking order suggest that health disorders may have long-term measurable effects on the position of a cow in the milking order, even when the effect of age on milking order is accounted for.Keywords: treatment history, milking order, dairy, disease, age ImplicationsWe found effects of both age and medical treatment history on milking order, and these suggest that health disorders may have long-term measurable effects on the position of a cow in the milking order, even when the effect of age on milking order is accounted for. These findings could lead to a better understanding of factors influential on the milking order in dairy cows, and therefore might result in better management around the milking procedure with an understanding of the potential for medical treatments to influence behaviour around milking.
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