Effect of summer grazing on welfare of dairy cows reared in mountain tie-stall barns

Abstract

Traditional mountain farms have an important economic, social and environmental role. The Alps management system for dairy cows consists of animals kept indoors from autumn to spring, mostly in tie-stalls, and moved to mountain pasture in summer. The aim of our study was to assess the effect of mountain summer grazing on the welfare of dairy cows housed in tie-stall barns. Twenty-four farms were considered. In twelve of them, animals were reared in tie-stalls and moved to mountain pasture for three months in summer; they were visited three times: (i) four weeks before grazing during the indoor period in the stall; (ii) about three weeks after the start of grazing; and (iii) in the stall, in autumn, at least three weeks after returning from grazing. The other twelve farms kept the animals in tiestalls all year; they were visited once in autumn. Data were collected following a protocol that considers animal-based measures and structure information on the basis of Quality Welfare Consortium ® indications. Data allowed the calculation of both the Animal Needs Index score (ANI 35L) and an overall assessment of the cows' welfare obtained from three general aspects: housing, animal's physical condition, and animal's behaviour. Summer grazing had a significant positive effect on injuries, lameness and animal's rising duration but a negative effect on faeces consistency. Moreover, a reduction of tongue playing was observed. The ANI 35L and the overall assessment did not show significant differences linked to summer grazing, which tended to have a positive but temporary effect on animal behaviour

Effect of grazing on the cow welfare of dairy herds evaluated by a multidimensional welfare index

“…Keil et al (2006) also found an improvement in the condition of the integument during the summer grazing period, whereas Rutherford et al (2008) found the effect when taking records after the summer. Furthermore, Corazzin et al (2010) observed cows during and after the alpine grazing period, and improvement was not found until grazing had ended, probably due to a grazing season lasting for only 3 months or to a lower prevalence of integument alterations (e.g. 18.6% cows with a hair loss patch v. 37.5% in the present study).…”

“…Burow@agrsci.dk Further studies have shown a beneficial effect of grazing on cows' integument (Keil et al, 2006;Rutherford et al, 2008;Corazzin et al, 2010) and gait (Rutherford et al, 2009;Corazzin et al, 2010). However, other findings showed either no (hock integument, Haskell et al, 2006) or negative (loss in body condition, Boken et al, 2005; increase of hoof lesions, Baird et al, 2009) effects of grazing.…”

“…With regard to welfare categories, the lower WI during summer than winter originated from feeding and health, showing a significantly improved condition in summer. Corazzin et al (2010) did not find any seasonal differences for their principal categories on housing, physical condition and behaviour. However, their assessment scheme differed from the present, in as much as it included more housing measures and different health and behaviour measures.…”

“…Corazzin et al (2010) compared welfare of tie-stalled dairy cows before and after grazing in the Italian Alps and used an assessment and measure aggregation scheme that were differently modified after WQ R and also derived from a study by Bartussek (1999). They did not find any difference.…”

“…The scheme considers 34 measures for dairy cow herds referring to the four principle welfare categories good feeding, good housing, good health and appropriate behaviour. Corazzin et al, (2010) evaluated the effect of 3 months of alpine summer grazing using a modified version of the WQ R assessment protocol for Italian dairy cows housed in tie stalls during the rest of the year. They did not find any effect of grazing on an aggregated overall welfare outcome, but found reduced prevalences of integument injuries.…”