Development and application of a protocol to evaluate herd welfare in Dutch dairy farms

Metz, J.H.M.; Dijkstra, T.; Franken, P.; Frankena, K.

doi:10.1016/j.livsci.2015.07.002

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Lameness is a major animal welfare and productive challenge facing the dairy industry because it causes pain (O'Callaghan et al, 2003;Whay et al, 2003;Rushen et al, 2008;Potterton et al, 2012), reduces DMI and milk yield (Bach et al, 2007;Leach et al, 2012), and increases the risk of a cow being culled before the end of lactation (Bicalho et al, 2007). Many studies have investigated the prevalence of lameness on dairy farms across the globe, but these studies have focused on the most common confined housing systems, such as freestall and tiestall barns (Andreasen and Forkman, 2012;von Keyserlingk et al, 2012;Metz et al, 2015;Solano et al, 2015;Westin et al, 2016;Adams et al, 2017;Bouffard et al, 2017). Little information is available on the prevalence of lameness and leg lesions on commercial farms within Brazil, or globally on dairies that use a mixture of freestall and compost-bedded packs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prevalence of lameness and leg lesions of lactating dairy cows housed in southern Brazil: Effects of housing systems

Costa

Burnett

Keyserlingk

et al. 2018

Journal of Dairy Science

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Within the last few decades, the North American and European dairy industries have been collecting information about lameness and leg injury prevalence on dairy farms and have tried to develop solutions to mitigate these ailments. Few published articles report the prevalence of lameness and leg lesions in areas outside of those 2 regions, or how alternative housing systems, such as compost-bedded packs, affect the prevalence of these maladies. The objectives of this study were to compare the prevalence of lameness and leg lesions on confined dairies that used freestall, compost-bedded packs, or a combination of these 2 systems in Brazil. Data were collected in the autumn and winter of 2016 from 50 dairy farms located in Paraná state, including 12 compost-bedded pack dairies (CB), 23 freestall dairies (FS), and 15 freestall dairies that used compost-bedded packs for vulnerable cows (FS+C). A visit to the farm consisted of a management questionnaire, an inspection of the housing areas as well as the milking parlor, and an evaluation of all lactating cows as they exited the parlor for lameness (score 1-5), hygiene (score 0-2), body condition score (score 1-5), and hock and knee lesions (score 0-1). Median 1-way chi-squared test was used to compare production systems. We found no difference between farm types in management practices related to hoof health management or average daily milk production per cow [31 (29-33.9) kg/d; median (quartile 1-3)], percentage of Holstein cattle in the herd [100% (90-100%)], conception rate [35.8% (30.2-38%)], or pregnancy rate [15% (13.7-18%)]. The CB farms were smaller [85 (49.5-146.5) milking cows] than both the FS [270 (178-327.5) milking cows] and FS+C farms [360 (150-541.5) milking cows). The overall prevalence of severe lameness (score 4 and 5) across all farms was 21.2% (15.2-28.5%) but was lower on the CB farms [14.2% (8.45-15.5%)] in comparison to the FS [22.2% (16.8-26.7%)] and the FS+C farms [22.2% (17.4-32.8%)]. Less than 1% of all cows scored on CB farms were observed with swollen or wounded knees (or both), which was lower than either the FS or FS+C farms [7.4% (3.6-11.9%) and 6.4% (2.6-11.8%) of all cows scored, respectively]. The same pattern was found for hock lesions, where the farm-level prevalence within the 3 different housing types was 0.5% (0-0.9%), 9.9% (0.8-15.3%), and 5.7% (2.6-10.9%) for CB, FS, and FS+C farms, respectively. No differences between farm systems were observed for hygiene or body condition score. On average, 2.7% (0.8-10.9%) of lactating cows had a soiled side, 15.4% (2.1-37.4%) had dirty legs and 1.7% (0-9.3%) had dirty udders. The average herd-level body condition score across farms was 2.9 (2.9-3), with 0.86% of the all cows scored having a body condition score <2.5. These results indicate that lameness prevalence on confined dairies in Brazil is high and highlight the need for remedial changes in environmental design and management practices. We found that CB farms in this region had reduced lameness and lesions in relation to FS or FS+C ...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prevalence of lameness and leg lesions of lactating dairy cows housed in southern Brazil: Effects of housing systems

Costa

Burnett

Keyserlingk

et al. 2018

Journal of Dairy Science

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“…Feasibility in terms of time needed and associated costs is often mentioned as the main driver for the final decision on which measures to finally include in assessment protocols (Sorensen et al 2007, Metz et al 2015. Some limitations have to be accepted for on-farm assessments, which -as mentioned above -may lead to the omission of welfare relevant indicators such as play behaviour.…”

Section: Choice Of Measures For Cattlementioning

confidence: 99%

Developing effective welfare measures for cattle

Winckler¹,

Mounier

Veissier

et al. 2021

Burleigh Dodds Series in Agricultural Science

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This chapter focuses on the performance characteristics a welfare measure should possess in order to be considered valid for the assessment of animal welfare. It presents a choice of validation measures that can be used to assess the welfare of cattle and discusses ways they can be collected in practice. The chapter also presents the various definitions of animal welfare and how these definitions can affect the measures that are chosen.

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“…STEP 2: Then the score attributed to the whole animal unit is equal to the worst score obtained at group level as long as at least 15% of the observed animals are in groups that obtain this score of a lower one. 47 We kiezen voor koppelniveau omdat er grote spreiding is tussen bedrijven (Metz et al 2015), waardoor een gemiddelde per koe niets zou zeggen. 48 Een vreetplek aan het voerhek meet minimaal 65 cm (standaard zoals gehanteerd door Metz et al 2015) 49 We hanteren het gewone gemiddelde van 50 We kiezen hier voor de term 'verwondingen', waarvoor in de sector meestal de term 'beschadigingen' wordt gebruikt.…”

Section: (Ei-3) Bestrijdingsmiddelen Dan Wel Residuen Van Diergeneesmunclassified

Monitoring verduurzaming veehouderij 1.0 : een eerste proeve van een Monitorings-systematiek voor de 15 ambities van de Uitvoeringsagenda Duurzame Veehouderij, met initiële resultaten voor drie diersectoren en een aantal keteninitiatieven

Bos

Puente-Rodríguez

Reijs

et al. 2017

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Development and application of a protocol to evaluate herd welfare in Dutch dairy farms

Cited by 10 publications

References 52 publications

Prevalence of lameness and leg lesions of lactating dairy cows housed in southern Brazil: Effects of housing systems

Prevalence of lameness and leg lesions of lactating dairy cows housed in southern Brazil: Effects of housing systems

Developing effective welfare measures for cattle

Monitoring verduurzaming veehouderij 1.0 : een eerste proeve van een Monitorings-systematiek voor de 15 ambities van de Uitvoeringsagenda Duurzame Veehouderij, met initiële resultaten voor drie diersectoren en een aantal keteninitiatieven

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