Rumination time and reticuloruminal temperature as possible predictors of dystocia in dairy cows

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to explore changes of rumination time and reticuloruminal pH and temperature of dairy cows and heifers (means ± standard deviation; age = 5.8 ± 1.9; parity = 2.7 ± 1.4; body condition score = 3.2 ± 0.2) with eutocic (EUT, n = 10) and dystocic calving (DYS, n = 8). The recording period lasted from 3 d before calving until 7 d in milk. For the comparison of rumination time and reticuloruminal characteristics between groups, time to return to baseline (the time interval required to return to baseline from the delivery of the calf) and area under the curve (AUC; both for prepartum and postpartum periods) were calculated for each parameter. Rumination time decreased from baseline 28 h before calving both for EUT and DYS cows; after 20 h before calving, it decreased to 32.4 ± 2.3 and 13.2 ± 2.0 min/4 h between 8 and 4 h before delivery in EUT and DYS cows, respectively, and then it decreased below 10 and 5 min during the last 4 h before calving. Until 12 h after delivery, rumination time reached 42.6 ± 2.7 and 51.0 ± 3.1 min/4 h in DYS and EUT dams, respectively; however, AUC and time to return to baseline suggested lower rumination activity in DYS cows than in EUT dams for the 168-h postpartum observational period. Reticuloruminal pH decreased from baseline 56 h before calving both for EUT and DYS cows, but did not differ between groups before delivery. Reticuloruminal pH showed a decreasing tendency and clear diurnal variation after calving for both EUT and DYS cows, with slightly higher AUC values in DYS cows. In DYS cows, reticuloruminal temperature decreased from baseline 32 h before calving by 0.23 ± 0.02°C, whereas in EUT cows such a decrease was found only 20 h before delivery (0.48 ± 0.05°C). The AUC of reticuloruminal temperature calculated for the prepartum period was greater in EUT cows than in DYS cows. During the first 4 h after calving, reticuloruminal temperature decreased from 39.68 ± 0.09 to 38.96 ± 0.10°C and from 39.80 ± 0.06 to 38.81 ± 0.08°C in EUT and DYS cows, respectively, and reached baseline levels after 35.4 ± 3.4 and 37.8 ± 4.2 h after calving in EUT and DYS cows, respectively. Based on our results, continuous monitoring of changes in rumination time and reticuloruminal temperature seems to be promising in the early detection of cows with a higher risk of dystocia. Depressed rumination activity of DYS cows after calving highlights the importance of the postpartum monitoring of cows experiencing difficulties at calving. The effect of dystocia on postpartum reticuloruminal pH was not pronounced.

Invited review: Current perspectives on eating and rumination activity in dairy cows

“…Stangaferro et al (2016c) showed that rumination time combined with cow activity was effective for identifying cows with severe cases of metritis but less effective for identifying cows with mild cases of metritis. Kovács et al (2017) reported less rumination time 8 h before calving up until 4 d postpartum for cows with dystocia compared with cows that had a normal calving. Stangaferro et al (2016b) showed that monitoring rumination time in combination with cow activity was effective for identifying cows with clinical cases of mastitis caused by Escherichia coli but not when it was caused by other pathogens.…”

“…As normal daily variation in ruminating time is about 10% (>10% with finely chopped or high-grain diets; Dulphy et al, 1979), the assumption is that large reductions in rumination time by an individual cow on a particular day can be an indication of a change in cow health. For example, rumination time has been shown to be consistently reduced about 8 h before calving and increase about 6 h later, likely a result of limited feed intake (Schirmann et al, 2013;Pahl et al, 2014;Paudyal et al, 2016;Borchers et al, 2017;Kovács et al, 2017). Thus, monitoring rumination time could be useful in predicting time of calving.…”

Developing and evaluating threshold-based algorithms to detect drinking behavior in dairy cows using reticulorumen temperature

“…The ability to detect drinking events using a thresholding method and by incorporating this information rather that removing it, as in previous studies (Cooper-Prado et al, 2011;Costa et al, 2016), has the potential to expand temperature monitoring in cows (Cooper-Prado et al, 2011;Timsit et al, 2011;Costa et al, 2016;Kovács et al, 2017). Drinking behavior in dairy cattle is important for the physical and emotional state of the animals (Baxter, 1983) and for farm economics because it is highly related to milk production (Steiger Burgos et al, 2001;Kramer et al, 2009;Daros et al, 2019).…”

“…In recent years, the development of precision livestock farming technology has facilitated not only the collection of real-time data but also the integration of this information within the overall monitoring of individual animals (Berckmans, 2014;Walton et al, 2018). Among these technologies is the collection of reticuloruminal temperature data through the use of reticular boluses that transmit data to a central computer using an active radiofrequency transmitter (Costa et al, 2016;Kovács et al, 2017;Lees et al, 2018). This allows farmers to continuously monitor cows' temperature, providing an alert when temperature goes out of a preset range; for example, during heat stress (Koltes et al, 2018).…”

“…Reticuloruminal temperature has been assessed as a potential prediction tool for estrus (Cooper-Prado et al, 2011), calving (Costa et al, 2016), dystocia (Kovács et al, 2017), and health status (Timsit et al, 2011) in cattle. In addition, reticuloruminal temperature can be affected by external variables such as water intake (Bewley et al, 2008b).…”