Cow comfort
Cow comfort is a term for measures in dairy farming that increase the productivity of dairy cows . The aim of the improvement is to create “grazing conditions” in the barn.
There are several ways to increase the cow's milk production:
- Lying mats and cow mattresses
- Sufficient headroom to swing your head
- Rubber mats
- Cow brushes
- Improvement of the stable climate
- Fighting flies
- Good access to the feed
- Walkway design
Lying comfort
In natural conditions, a cow spends 60% of the day lying down, getting up up to 20 times a day. Then the cows look for a suitable place again and lay down to rest. If this lying down is associated with pain in the cows, they rest while standing. As a result, rumination decreases and food and water consumption is reduced.
For each cow, at least one sufficiently large, behavior-appropriate and clean place to lie is necessary. Sufficient space in the head area to allow the head to swing when standing up is also important for increasing cow comfort. If this required space is not available, the animals suffer pain every time they stand up because they bump against the feed fence, wall or neck bar. The animals try to prevent this pain from getting up. They get behavioral disorders by standing up like a horse : they put their front legs upright and push themselves into a standing position with their back legs. This in turn reduces the useful life of the cows.
Cow mattresses or lying mats improve lying comfort, have a heat insulating effect and help to avoid injuries to the skin and joints.
The size of the lying area should not be determined on the basis of circulating average sizes, but you should first measure your flock and use these values to calculate the lying area:
- Lying length in cm: 1.11 × sloping trunk length in cm + 20 cm
- Cubicle length: head space + lying length + scattering threshold for deep box
- Box width = 0.85 × height at the withers
Rubber mats
Walking areas are very important in dairy farming because the cow is in constant contact with the floor. Floors that are too hard, such as concrete, can cause claw problems by rubbing the claw too hard. The risk of slipping is relatively low with concrete, but increases sharply after a while with slatted floors. The advantages of rubber mats are to improve the mobility of the cows because there is less risk of slipping and to reduce joint diseases because the floor is softer and more springy. The claw wear is not changed by rubber mats.
Cow brush
A cow brush consists of one or two rotating brushes that are arranged diagonally or, in the case of two brushes, at almost right angles to one another. With this device, a cow can independently clean and massage its fur.
Integrated control electronics ensure that it is switched on and off automatically as soon as a cow is at the device. An overload protection ensures shutdown, for example if a tail gets entangled in the brush.
Feed intake
In the meadow, the cow takes a so-called pasture step in order to be able to reach the grass. This cannot be done at the feeding trough due to the straight trough back wall. With troughs at ground level, the cow can only eat the feed lying on the ground with difficulty or with difficulty, which leads to less feed intake. The trough must therefore be placed at a height (at least 15 cm). In addition, the attractiveness of the feed can be increased by regularly pushing the feed and the nutrient uptake can be improved. The animal-feeding place ratio should be at least 1: 1, since cows are synchronous eaters and lower-ranking animals will otherwise be displaced when eating.
Climatic conditions
Cows are steppe animals and used to changing climatic conditions. Therefore it is not a problem for the health of the animals to keep them at outside temperature. Temperatures below 0 ° C are also no problem. Therefore cows are also suitable for year-round grazing. Dairy cows run the risk of heat stress when temperatures are too high in summer , which leads to reduced performance. This can be remedied with large fans or showers. Excessive relative humidity, pollutants in the air or extreme fly infestation also have a negative effect on performance. In stables, care should be taken to ensure that drafts can negatively affect the animals.
Walkway design
Too narrow gangways can lead to stress in cows, which has a negative effect on performance. The corridors should be wide enough so that two cows can meet and pass each other without affecting their individual distance. At feeding aisles or in front of waterers, when a cow is eating or drinking, there should be as much space behind it as there is for a walkway. Through this space, lower-ranking and high-ranking animals can meet without necessarily leading to rank fights or the lower-ranking cow being driven away. In addition, it should be avoided to build stalls in which a lower-ranking cow can be "locked up" by higher-ranking animals if the higher-ranking cow blocks the way. In this way, even lower-ranking animals can move about stress-free in the barn, and their productivity can come into its own.
literature
- Katrin Mahlkow-Nerge, Marion Tischer, Peter Zieger: Modern fertility management in cattle: A guide from practice for practice . Agroconcept GmbH, Bonn, 2005
- Thomas Richter: Cause of Disease Housing: Assessment of livestock stalls - a veterinary guide . Enke, Stuttgart, 2006
- Walter Fruhstorfer, Ulrich Meyer-Ötting: Agricultural level, 8th edition. BLV Buchverlag, Munich, 2007
