Gait assessment in dairy cattle

Flower, F.C.; Weary, Daniel M.

doi:10.1017/s1751731108003194

Cited by 105 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 61 publications

(67 reference statements)

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“…errors of omission, observer expectations, and experience) as well as characteristics of the scoring system (e.g. level of detail in the description and the use of general terms) (reviewed by Flower and Weary (2009)). …”

Section: Validitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of animal based measures for the assessment of dairy cow welfare ANIBAM

Nielsen

Angelucci

Scalvenzi

et al. 2014

EFSA Supporting Publications

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The overall aim of the project was to evaluate the use of routinely collected animal based measures (ABMs) for an evaluation of the overall animal welfare in dairy cow herds. ABMs being able to detect worst adverse effects in relation to animal welfare were identified based on the existing literature and expert opinion. The validity and robustness of these ABMs were evaluated and cow mortality, somatic cell count and lameness were selected for further study. A number of factors of variation were selected using expert opinion and used in a model to collate routinely collected data from Italy, Belgium and Denmark on selected ABMs. The routinely collected data was uploaded to the Data Collection Framework platform at EFSA and the data management in this process was evaluated. Five research datasets from Italy, Belgium, Denmark and France including information on ABMs as well as a measure of 'overall animal welfare' at herd level were analysed to evaluate the association between the ABMs (individually or in combination) and overall welfare. The measure of 'overall animal welfare' were not the same for all datasets. Except from the Italian data, the association between the ABMs and the different overall welfare measures were generally weak. Likewise, combining more than one ABM only improved the prediction of the overall welfare in the Italian dataset. Analyses of the other datasets could not confirm this finding. Finally, suggestions for future recordings of ABMs not routinely collected at the moment were given with a special focus on lameness. In conclusion, the relationship between selected ABMs and overall welfare at the herd level is complex and still not sufficiently studied. Therefore, a system using routinely collected ABMs to predict the overall welfare at herd level in dairy herds does not seem realistic based on the results from the present study. The present document has been produced and adopted by the bodies identified above as author(s The present document has been produced and adopted by the bodies identified above as author(s). In accordance with Article 36 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, this task has been carried out exclusively by the author(s) in the context of a grant agreement between the European Food Safety Authority and the author(s). The present document is published complying with the transparency principle to which the Authority is subject. It cannot be considered as an output adopted by the Authority. The European Food Safety Authority reserves its rights, view and position as regards the issues addressed and the conclusions reached in the present document, without prejudice to the rights of the authors. SUMMARYThe European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) aims to establish a practical and validated basis for data collection of animal based measures (ABMs) for farmed animal species and consequent quantitative risk assessment of the welfare of target populations. Through a series of six integrated objectives this project evaluated the possibility to use routinely collected ABMs to pre...

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Section: Validitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of animal based measures for the assessment of dairy cow welfare ANIBAM

Nielsen

Angelucci

Scalvenzi

et al. 2014

EFSA Supporting Publications

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“…Many of the lameness scoring systems use a 5-point ordinal scale (Sprecher et al, 1997;Wincler and Willen, 2001;Flower and Weary, 2006) and many of the scoring systems are modifications of previous systems (Haskell et al, 2006;Rajkondawar et al, 2006;Flower and Weary, 2009). Rajkondawar et al (2002) developed a walk-through system for lameness detection by measuring the ground reaction forces, while Tasch and Rajkondawar (2004) further developed the SoftSeparator algorithm to separate measurements of a group of cows that walked through the system.…”

Section: Lameness Detectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…NRS is based on the seven specific gait attributes, which were described by Flower and Weary (2009). Multiparous cows with sole ulcers scored higher than cows without sole ulcers (3.3 vs. 2.8).…”

Section: The Environment As An Important Component In Lesion Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some scoring systems of bovine gait take into account several specific gait features such as asymmetric steps and tracking up; however, they are not identified as occurring when cows develop hoof lesions . Only these scoring systems will make possible the early identification of cows with sole ulcers and allow the reduction of pain with the administration of local anaesthetics (Flower and Weary, 2009). The problem associated with early lameness detection may partly stem from the fact that average herd size is increasing and producers are pressed for time to spend with their animals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Behaviour of lame cows: a review

Olechnowicz¹,

Jaśkowski²

2011

Vet. Med. - Czech

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Claw horn disorders, infectious diseases of hooves and leg injuries cause lameness in dairy cows. However, such diseases as sole haemorrhages, sole ulcers or white line diseases, cause clinical lameness. Lameness reduces milk production, the fertility of cows and also causes earlier culling of cows, as well resultings in a deterioration of their welfare. In this review we focus on the impact of lameness on bovine behaviour. The time spent lying down is an important behaviour of dairy cows. As an increased locomotion score is associated with an increased percentage of cows lying down, also the position of cows within the milking parlour is associated with lameness. Lame cows are more likely to present toward the end of milking. Clinical lameness is a chronic stressor, reducing progesterone concentrations prior to oestrus, and resulting in reduced sexual behaviour; however, lame cows have the same potential period of oestrus when compared with non-lame cows. Hoof diseases, particularly those which are a source of pain, also reduce animal welfare. A high standard of cow welfare may be achieved by improving the lives of animals and the people who work with them. A lack of comfort while lying presents a significant risk for lameness. Improvements in comfort on more than 75% of farms (32 out of a total number of 53 farms) reduced the incidence of mastitis, while on 42 farms it reduced the prevalence of lameness. The keeping of cows on the straw bed of stalls does not only improve animal welfare, mainly through the greater comfort of the floor, but has also been showed to increase eating and ruminating behaviour. Cows also prefer straw to sand bedding and lay down longer on straw than on sand; however, cleanliness and hoof health have been shown to be better on sand. Apart from comfort, the main factors which promote improvements in bovine welfare and health, include good management of dairy farms, keeping cows in free stalls with accompanying regular exercise, and a long time spent at pasture. The prevalence of clinical lameness was demonstrated to be higher on farms using mattresses when compared with farms using deep-bedded stalls. No differences were found in behaviour among cows with different degrees of lameness housed in mattress stalls. Hence, measures of laying behaviour are not good indicators of lameness.

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“…While subjective gait assessment methods provide an immediate, on-site recognition and require no technical equipment, they show variation in reliability and repeatability of and between observers [7][8]. More objective kinetic and kinematic methods to identify both lameness and limb abnormalities have been studied, such as force plate systems, 3D-accelerometers, infrared thermography and tracking mixed with modelling from vision-based and This work was partially supported by the Petplan Charitable Trust 2017-569-607 awarded to Dr Fioranelli (PI) and colleagues.…”

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confidence: 99%

Animal Lameness Detection With Radar Sensing

Shrestha

Loukas

Kernec

et al. 2018

IEEE Geosci. Remote Sensing Lett.

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Abstract-Lameness is a significant problem for performance horses and farmed animals, with severe impact on animal welfare and treatment costs. Lameness is commonly diagnosed through subjective scoring methods performed by trained veterinary clinicians, but automatic methods using suitable sensors would improve efficiency and reliability. In this paper, we propose the use of radar micro-Doppler signatures for contactless and automatic identification of lameness, and present preliminary results for dairy cows, sheep, and horses. These proof-of-concept results are promising, with classification accuracy above 85% for dairy cows, around 92% for horses, and close to 99% for sheep.

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Gait assessment in dairy cattle

Cited by 105 publications

References 61 publications

Use of animal based measures for the assessment of dairy cow welfare ANIBAM

Use of animal based measures for the assessment of dairy cow welfare ANIBAM

Behaviour of lame cows: a review

Animal Lameness Detection With Radar Sensing

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