Do Walking Distance and Time Away from the Paddock Influence Daily Behaviour Patterns and Milk Yield of Grazing Dairy Cows?

Abstract

In pasture-based systems, cows may spend several hours away from the paddock and may also walk several kilometres to meet daily milking requirements; this could lead cows to experience time constraints for grazing, ruminating and lying time in the paddock. This study investigated how walking distance and time spent away from the paddock affected daily behavioural patterns (i.e., grazing, ruminating and lying time) and milk yield. Dairy cows were managed in three rotationally grazed groups (n = 29 cows each) on the same farm and milked twice daily. A triaxial ear tag accelerometer on each cow recorded daily duration of grazing and ruminating, and a leg-based accelerometer recorded the daily lying time, for 13 days. GPS collars on four cows per group recorded the daily walking distance and total time away from the paddock for the group. A mixed repeated measures model tested how time off-paddock and walking distance affected the daily behavioural patterns; age, breed, milk yield and maximum ambient temperature were used as covariates with group as the observational unit. A second similar model tested how these factors affected milk yield. Walking distance and time spent away from the paddock were not correlated. When daily walking distance increased (to a maximum of 4 km/d), cows spent more time grazing and less time ruminating, but lying time was not affected. This result may, in part, be related to the greater energy expenditure demands for walking longer distances and milk production. When time away from the paddock increased (to a maximum of 4 h/d), cows spent less time lying, but grazing and ruminating times were not affected. Milk yield was not affected by walking distance, but one of the groups experienced a lower milk yield when time away from the paddock was increased. This result suggests that, for some cows, lying times may be shorter when experiencing a longer time away from the paddock, which may also affect milk yield. Overall, this study indicates that paddock behaviours are associated with walking distance to the milking parlour and time spent away from the paddock. Efforts to reduce walking distance and time spent away from the paddock are likely to provide cows with greater opportunity to engage in daily behaviours in the paddock that meet their needs and maintain their milk yield.

Toward on-farm measurement of personality traits and their relationships to behavior and productivity of grazing dairy cattle

“…The time that individual cows spend feeding, ruminating, and lying is known to be highly variable in indoor-housed cows (see reviews by Beauchemin, 2018;Tucker et al, 2021), yet only a few reports are available showing the extent of individual behavior variability of pastured cows (Beggs et al, 2018a;Hendriks et al, 2019;Thompson et al, 2019). Our companion report found that farm management factors, such as time spent away from the paddock and walking distance, contribute in part to these individual differences in behavior patterns (Neave et al, 2021), but a large part of this individual variation remains unexplained. For example, waiting time at the milking parlor only explained 14% of the variation in lying time among cows (Beggs et al, 2018a).…”

“…We also caution that our results are limited to pasture-based dairy cattle fed little supplement and managed in much smaller groups than are typical of New Zealand dairy farms (total of 87 cows across 3 groups of 29 cows, compared with a typical farm of 400 cows that may be managed in several large groups; LIC and DairyNZ, 2020). The magnitude of the effects observed in our study could be larger on farms that experience longer walking distances and time away from the paddock for milking, which are factors known to affect behavior in the paddock (Neave et al, 2021), or there could be smaller effects when supplement is fed, regardless of farm size. Furthermore, the behavioral tests used to characterize personality traits were repeated over only a short period of time (20 d), so the tests may not have been as novel to the cows, as compared with tests that had been conducted further apart.…”

“…A previous report described personality traits of adult dairy cattle using similar tests with a sample size of 22 to 26 cows (Neave et al, 2020), which is a similar to the 29 cows per group in this study. Animal management and cow enrollment were the same as reported in a companion study (Neave et al, 2021). All cows were in peak lactation (80 ± 19 d postpartum) due to the seasonal block calving system in New Zealand, with a mean ± standard deviation (SD) milk production of 22.4 ± 4.9 kg/d (range: 9.7 to 33.0 kg/d).…”

“…It is necessary to understand the factors contributing to individual variability in feeding and lying behavior of dairy cows so that management may be tailored to the needs of individuals. Time spent away from the pasture and waiting time at the milking parlor are 2 variables known to be negatively associated with lying behavior of cows (Beggs et al, 2018b;Neave et al, 2021), but waiting time at the milking parlor only explains 14% of the individual variation in lying time (Beggs et al, 2018a). This suggests that individual cows may compensate for this challenge in different ways; while some cows reduce their lying time, others may adjust time spent engaged in other behaviors.…”

Comparison of dairy cow step activity under different milking schedules

“…A recent study reported that on days where cows walked further, grazing time increased and rumination time decreased (Neave et al 2021). The authors hypothesised that this was due to the increased energy expenditure of walking further.…”