Symposium review: The impact of management and facilities on cow culling rates

Abstract

This symposium review examines the association between comfort and cow longevity, with a particular emphasis on optimizing resting behavior in confinementhoused systems. Housed dairy cattle demonstrate a variety of negative behavioral and physiological effects when lying time is restricted, with cows prioritizing the recovery of rest over feeding when both are deprived. There is, however, wide individual-cow variation in daily lying times, influenced by an array of cow-, housing-, and management-related factors. Cow-related factors include individual preference, parity, stage of lactation cycle, milk yield, ill health, and lameness. Lying time tends to increase with age and days in milk and during periods of ill health, whereas milk yield is negatively correlated with lying time. The effect of lameness is complicated by severity and by interactions with bedding type, which modifies the cows' ability to rise and lie down. Generally, lame cows suffer prolonged lying bouts of greater variability in length and take fewer bouts per day. Often this results in an overall increase in lying time. Thus, higher standards of cow comfort and improved cow health are not always reflected by longer lying times. Housing and management factors that influence resting behavior include the design of the resting area, access to the resting space, and the thermal microenvironment of the lying area. Provision of dry, deep loose bedding, stocking cows to allow each animal access to a resting space, allowing sufficient time to access the resting area, and providing heat abatement to reduce heat load optimize resting behavior. Because lameness and poor body condition are commonly found in culled dairy cattle, the link between cow comfort and culling is likely mediated through lameness onset and management. Optimal comfort helps prevent the onset of lameness and facilitates recovery once cows become lame, which limits the effect of lameness on feeding behavior and reduces the risk for other healthrelated disorders, poor reproductive performance, and early herd removal. Cow comfort cannot be assessed by measuring the duration of lying time alone. Rather, comfort is reflected by the optimization of resting behavior, providing facilities and management to allow cows to lie down when they choose to do so for as long as they need to.

Invited review: Lying time and the welfare of dairy cows

“…Reductions in lying time have been experimentally induced by unfavorable lying conditions such as overstocking (Krawczel et al, 2012a), manipulating the stall width , or manipulating the comfort of stalls (Haley et al, 2000;Tucker et al, 2009c), and none of these found any change in the milk yield associated with these treatments. Thus, a direct and simple effect of altered lying time on milk yield seems unlikely (Cook, 2020); however, we note that the average lying times were all above 10 h/d in these experiments. When cows had less time to both lie down and feed, they produced less milk, most likely due to a drop in feed intake (Munksgaard et al, 2005).…”

“…Alternatively, or additionally, the relationship between milk yield and lying time may reflect the fact that cows with higher yield have a higher energy demand and spend more time feeding, leaving less time available for lying down (Cook, 2020). In support of this, Løvendahl and Munksgaard (2016) observed that first-lactation cows with higher yield fed longer and spent less time lying down, compared with those with lower yield.…”

“…Such studies, however, are complicated by the possibility that, once cows become lame, they spend more time lying down. No studies have experimentally reduced lying time and examined consequent changes in lameness, so the best evidence that reduced lying time increases risk of lameness is limited to correlational studies that have found reduced lying time preceding the onset of lameness (Cook, 2020).…”

“…Milking times that result in lower lying times are more problematic than tradeoffs with feeding, given that cows often do not have much choice in the matter and are standing on concrete during all (freestall, dry lots, bedded packs) or part of this time (pasture). There are likely detrimental health implications of the additional time spent standing on concrete, regardless of the reason (Cook, 2020).…”

A Comparison of Rice Husks and Peanut Shells as Bedding Materials on Dairy Cows’ Preferences, Behaviour, and Health

“…Previous research indicates the prevalence of hypocalcaemia in multiparous cows is higher than for primiparous cows [15,49], which is similar to the finding observed in the current study, that is, the serum calcium concentration of multiparous cows was lower than that of primiparous cows. Milk yield is negatively correlated with lying time [50]. Normocalcemic multiparous cows produce more milk than hypocalcaemia cows, but no association has been found between the lying time of multiparous cows and hypocalcaemia before calving [46,51].…”