Behavioral changes in freestall-housed dairy cows with naturally occurring clinical mastitis

Abstract

Dairy cows exhibit classic signs of sickness behavior during mastitis. However, knowledge about the consequences of naturally occurring mastitis in freestall-housed dairy cows, milked in automatic milking systems, is lacking. The aim of the present study was to describe the behavior of dairy cows after diagnosis and antibiotic treatment of mastitis. In the days before and after antibiotic treatment, the milking behavior, feeding, and activity were examined in 30 mastitic and 30 control Danish Holstein-Friesian cows kept in freestalls and milked by an automatic milking system. Sickness behavior was evident in the mastitic dairy cows and local clinical signs in the udder as well as behavioral changes persisted beyond the 3 d of antibiotic treatment. In the days before diagnosis and treatment, feed intake was reduced compared with the control animals. Although reduced by the antibiotic treatment, this difference persisted until at least 10 d after diagnosis. Sick cows spent less time lying in the initial days after treatment, reversing to the level of the control cows within the 10 d posttreatment period. In the 48 h before antibiotic treatment, the mastitic cows showed increased restlessness during milking, as seen by a higher frequency of tripping and kicking. Mastitic cows continued to show increased kicking during milking even after the antibiotic treatment period. These results show that the behavioral changes induced by naturally occurring mastitis persisted beyond the days of antibiotic treatment, thereby calling for further investigation into management of mastitic dairy cows to optimize recovery and ensure animal welfare during the recovery period after clinical mastitis.

Effect of different scenarios for selective dry-cow therapy on udder health, antimicrobial usage, and economics

“…This oversimplifies the potential effect of DCT on development of antimicrobial resistance, public opinion on preventive antimicrobial usage, political issues, and animal welfare. Although the perspective of animal welfare differs between citizens and farmers (Vanhonacker, 2008), mastitis, specifically CM, does affect animal welfare (Fogsgaard et al, 2015). Finally, for a system such as a selection protocol for DCT to be successfully implemented in practice, its applicability is important.…”

Normal milk microbiome is reestablished following experimental infection with Escherichia coli independent of intramammary antibiotic treatment with a third-generation cephalosporin in bovines

“…This condition affects almost 25% of the 9.3 million dairy cows present in the USA every year [3] and negatively impacts animal welfare [4–6] and productivity [7–9]. Recent studies have reported that approximately 80% of all antimicrobials used on American dairy farms are for the treatment or prevention of mastitis [10].…”

Short communication: Short-term changes in stocking density did not alter meal characteristics of lactating Holstein dairy cattle

“…The current study used 1 d to record behavioral observations within each period, as this was the only day allowing for 24 h of uninterrupted observation. Many factors can influence the day-to-day variation in dairy cow behavior, including social structure (Grant and Albright, 2001), estrus cycles (Halli et al, 2015, Pahl et al, 2015, and disease (Fogsgaard et al, 2015). To help mitigate these variations, the study allowed 9 d to acclimate to the pens and establish a hierarchy, although cow feeding behavior was only affected during the 1 h after the first fresh feed delivery after regrouping (von Keyserlingk et al, 2008).…”