Invited review: Lying time and the welfare of dairy cows

Abstract

Adequate time lying down is often considered an important aspect of dairy cow welfare. We examine what is known about cows' motivation to lie down and the consequences for health and other indicators of biological function when this behavior is thwarted. We review the environmental and animal-based factors that affect lying time in the context of animal welfare. Our objective is to review the research into the time that dairy cows spend lying down and to critically examine the evidence for the link with animal welfare. Cows can be highly motivated to lie down. They show rebound lying behavior after periods of forced standing and will sacrifice other activities, such as feeding, to lie down for an adequate amount of time. They will work, by pushing levers or weighted gates, to lie down and show possible indicators of frustration when lying behavior is thwarted. Some evidence suggests that risk of lameness is increased in environments that provide unfavorable conditions for cows to lie down and where cows are forced to stand. Lameness itself can result in longer lying times, whereas mastitis reduces it. Cowbased factors such as reproductive status, age, and milk production influence lying time, but the welfare implications of these differences are unknown. Lower lying times are reported in pasture-based systems, dry lots, and bedded packs (9 h/d) compared with tiestalls and freestalls (10 to 12 h/d) in cross-farm research. Unfavorable conditions, including too few lying stalls for the number of cows, hard or wet lying surfaces, inadequate bedding, stalls that are too small or poorly designed, heat, and rain all reduce lying time. Time constraints, such as feeding or milking, can influence lying time. However, more information is needed about the implications of mediating factors such as the effect of the standing surface (concrete, pasture, or other surfaces) and cow behavior while standing (e.g., being restrained, walking, grazing) to understand the effect of low lying times on animal welfare. Many factors contribute to the difficulty of finding a valid threshold for daily lying time to use in the assessment of animal welfare. Although higher lying times often correspond with cow comfort, and lower lying times are seen in unfavorable conditions, exceptions occur, namely when cows lie down for longer because of disease or when they spend more time standing because of estrus or parturition, or to engage in other behaviors. In conclusion, lying behavior is important to dairy cattle, but caution and a full understanding of the context and the character of the animals in question is needed before drawing firm conclusions about animal welfare from measures of lying time.

Lying and stepping behaviors around corrective or therapeutic claw trimming

“…Considering the painful nature of some of the foot disorders that required TCT (Read and Walker, 1998), the greatest LY and lowest ST at d −1 were expected in this group (Table 1). Most previous reports on the association between locomotion disorders and changes in lying behavior describe increased LY (Singh et al, 1993;Galindo and Broom, 2002;Blackie et al, 2011;Weigele et al, 2018;Tucker et al, 2021). However, some studies also reported no difference (Ito et al, 2010;Yunta et al, 2012) or decreased LY (Cook et al, 2004).…”

“…In most cases, lameness is an expression of pain and results in a change in a cow's ability to express a normal behavior (Whay and Shearer, 2017). Moreover, a cow's motivation to perform certain behaviors (i.e., walking, lying) may change to alleviate pain and discomfort (Tucker et al, 2021). Sensor systems measuring cow activity have been developed for the identification of lameness disorders, providing an alternative to detection methodologies relying on visual observation (Dutton-Regester et al, 2018;Weigele et al, 2018).…”

A Systematic Review on Commercially Available and Validated Sensor Technologies for Welfare Assessment of Dairy Cattle

“…Allowing dairy cows adequate space and facilities to lie down is considered an important aspect for production as well as animal welfare (71). As recently reviewed, the lying time will depend on individual cowbased factors (reproductive status, age, and milk production), health status (lameness and mastitis), and the comfort of housing facilities (72). For example, pasture-based cows are characterized by longer, undisrupted lying times compared to cows kept in cubicles (73).…”

“…For example, pasture-based cows are characterized by longer, undisrupted lying times compared to cows kept in cubicles (73). Lameness can result in longer lying times while mastitis can reduce it (72). For this reason, to avoid confounding factors between animal health and housing conditions, an integration with other data sources, such as milking or breeding records, presence of lameness or mastitis is necessary.…”

Effect of a reduced amount of straw bedding on goats’ comfort and hygienic characteristics of milk and straw

“…Preference for difference surfaces is highly species-specific. For example, a recent review highlighted that in dairy cows the total duration of lying time is positively affected by the presence of soft bedding material (Tucker et al 2021), whereas Bøe et al (2007) report that goats perceive straw (i.e., a soft bedding) as an unattractive bedding material, probably because they have the same preference of their wild ancestors for lying on hard surfaces (i.e., rocks, that are typically in elevated spaces and hidden, as anti-predatory strategy; Dwyer 2009;Zobel et al 2019). Furthermore, Bøe et al (2007) and Sutherland et al (2017) suggest that thermal conductivity properties of the lying surface may be more important than softness for goats' comfort, although results are discordant because animals were subjected to different treatments prior to the trial in these studies.…”