The Behaviour and Productivity of Mid-Lactation Dairy Cows Provided Daily Pasture Allowance over 2 or 7 Intensively Grazed Strips

Abstract

Simple SummaryRecent technological advances will soon allow pastoral dairy farmers to manage their cattle using increasingly intense and complex grazing regimes. Ensuring there is merit in the implementation of more intense grazing regimes will minimise the potential misuse of this technology and the associated consequences of misuse for animal welfare and productivity. Two groups of dairy cattle were provided with the same amount of fresh pasture over either 2 or 7 feeds per day. Cows that received pasture over 7 feeds produced less milk and spent less time ruminating, but more time resting, per day. However, feeding frequency did not affect the time cows spent feeding or estimated pasture consumption. Increasing the frequency of feeding restricts the amount of pasture available to cattle at any one time. In response, cattle adjust their ingestive behaviour (e.g., adopt high intake rates) which may negatively impact digestive processes. The success of more intensive pastoral dairy production requires grazing regimes that support the natural ingestive, digestive, and social behaviours of cattle, rather than necessitating cattle to substantially alter their behaviour in accordance with the grazing regime imposed upon them.AbstractResearch into the effects of intense grazing regimes on cattle behaviour and productivity will support the ethical intensification of pastoral dairy production. Two treatments were applied to two herds of 30 mid-lactation cows over 28 days. Cows were offered an estimated 12 kg DM/cow (above 5 cm from ground level) of irrigated pasture per day. The control herd received their daily pasture allocation in two equal grazings while the experimental herd received theirs over seven smaller grazings. Backgrazing beyond the current allocation (morning or afternoon) was prevented. Individual records were taken daily for milk production and behaviour (MooMonitor+). Milk composition, energy corrected milk (ECM), and live weight were recorded weekly. Feeding mid-lactation dairy cows over seven smaller grazing allocations reduced the time cows spent ruminating (p < 0.001), milk yield (p < 0.001), and ECM (p < 0.05). However, milk composition, live weight, time feeding, and pasture consumption were not affected by feeding frequency (p > 0.05). Cattle may have adapted their ingestive behaviour in response to the more intensive strip-grazing regime utilised in this study, with negative consequences for digestive processes and consequently milk production. Intense grazing regimes need to support the ingestive, digestive, and social behaviours of cattle.

Pre-Exposure to an Electrical Stimulus Primes Associative Pairing of Audio and Electrical Stimuli for Dairy Heifers in a Virtual Fencing Feed Attractant Trial

“…The ethical acceptability of virtual fencing technology relies on the ability of all animals to learn the association between audio and electrical stimuli and through this gain a level of predictability and controllability over their environment [1]. Virtual fencing could enable the implementation of increasingly intense and complex grazing regimes in pastoral dairy systems [13,14], and with increased complexity comes a potential risk of some animals not learning to avoid the electrical stimulus [1]. Long-term studies with larger group sizes are needed to determine if all animals are able to learn the association between the audio and electrical stimulus.…”

“…The application of virtual fencing has been well demonstrated on beef breed cattle in extensive grazing systems [3,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12], and may enable the implementation of intense and complex grazing regimes in pastoral dairy systems [13,14]. There is considerable variation between individual beef heifers [6,10] and dairy cows [14] in associative learning of audio and electrical stimuli.…”

Feature Selection and Comparison of Machine Learning Algorithms in Classification of Grazing and Rumination Behaviour in Sheep

“…However, the majority of research surrounding the automatic monitoring of livestock behaviour in general, including eating behaviour, has been on dairy cattle with high reported accuracies around 84–96% for various eating behaviours [ 3 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. There are some commercial monitoring systems that are available for dairy cattle that are used to capture feeding behaviours such as Lely [ 12 ] and MooMonitors [ 13 ]. However, none are available for sheep.…”

The Effects of Dairy Heifer Age at Training on Rate of Learning and Retention of Learning in a Virtual Fencing Feed Attractant Trial

“…An emotionally resilient cow with high cognitive abilities may be better equipped to cope with the increasingly complex environment provided by modern dairy farms (in terms of uptake of technologies and herd sizes). This includes the possible use of virtual fencing to implement increasingly intensive and complex grazing regimes in pastoral dairy systems (e.g., Verdon et al, 2018). We encourage future work to assess the effects of stress at sensitive periods of ontogeny on the development of emotionality and cognition in farm animals.…”