Tie-Stall Design and its Relationship to Lameness, Injury, and Cleanliness on 317 Ontario Dairy Farms

Abstract

The objective of this study was to identify relationships between tie-stall design and selected cow-based injury, lameness, and cleanliness measurements. All lactating dairy cows (n = 17,893) from 317 Ontario tie-stall dairy farms were evaluated once between March and September 2003. Stall dimensions were recorded and cows were scored for neck and hock lesions, broken tails, back arch, hind claw rotation, and udder and hind limb cleanliness. Neck lesions were significantly associated with tie-rail height. Hock lesions were positively associated with presence of an electric trainer and hind limb and udder cleanliness and negatively associated with tie-chain length. A negative association was found between broken tails and tie-rail height and a positive association between broken tails and udder and hind limb cleanliness. As mean stall length increased, fewer cows had hind-claw rotation. Having more dirty cows was associated negatively with stall length and chain length, and positively associated with the presence of an electric trainer. Proportion of cows with clean udders increased with the percentage of cows with clean hind limbs and with tie-rail height. As the prevalence of clean udders increased the prevalence of broken tails decreased. This study provides insight into how tie-stall dimensions may influence aspects of dairy cow welfare. Application of these principles could improve tie-stall design.

The Effect of the Housing System on the Welfare Quality of Dairy Cows

“…This suggests that free stalls expose cattle to adverse environmental conditions, which are important to the epidemiology of lameness (Cook and Nordlund, 2009). The prevalence of lameness varies in the studies made in different countries of the world, ranging from 20% (Espejo et al, 2006) to 48% (Dippel et al, 2009) for loose housing systems and from 1% to 21% in tied systems (Cook, 2003;Sogstad et al, 2005, Zurbrigg et al, 2005. In Romania data are available only for the lameness prevalence in tie-stall housing and it is similar with that obtained in this study (Popescu et al, 2010b).…”

“…Body lesions were observed especially at the animals' hock, without significant differences (P>0.05) between the two housing systems. However, in both systems the prevalence of body lesions was lower than it was found in other studies (Weary and Taszkun, 2000;Zurbrigg et al, 2005).…”

“…In Romania data are available only for the lameness prevalence in tie-stall housing and it is similar with that obtained in this study (Popescu et al, 2010b). The increase in lameness prevalence is associated with solid concrete flooring, slippery walking alleys (Cook and Nordlund, 2009), uncomfortable and dirty barns (Cook, 2002(Cook, , 2003Espejo et al, 2006;Chapinal et al, 2013), increased degree of dirtiness in cows' hind legs (Cook, 2002;Zurbrigg et al, 2005) and zero-grazing (Haskell et al, 2006). Because in our study the mean prevalence of lameness exceeds 15%, we can state, referring to Nordlund et al (2004) that the implementation of specific measures is urgently needed to decrease lameness in 67% of the evaluated farms.…”

“…This aspect was signalled also by other researchers in their studies (Cook, 2002;Zurbrigg et al, 2005). Even if the percentage of the cows with dirty udders was significantly higher in TSH, the situation is alarming in both systems (Welfare Quality Consortium, 2009).…”

Screening of Selected Indicators of Dairy Cattle Welfare in Macedonia

“…The prevalence of lameness had wide range in the assessed farms, but not exceeding 16.2% per farm. Lameness in cattle is highly related to the bed surface, bedding material, cleanliness, hock skin alterations, regular exercise and feeding management (21,23,24,25) -factors observed in poor condition in the assessed farms.The measures of criterion "Absence of disease", ocular discharge, diarrhea, vulvar discharge, dystocia, percentage of downer cows and mortality rate exceeded the warning and alarm threshold set up by the protocol. The study conducted in Serbia revealed similar findings as regards the percentage of animals with ocular discharge, diarrhea, dystocia and mortality rate (11), while the Romania (13,16) were lower for all parameters than ours.…”