Assessing lameness in cows kept in tie-stalls

Leach, K. A.; Dippel, Sabine; Huber, Johann; March, Solveig; Winckler, Christoph; Whay, HR

doi:10.3168/jds.2008-1648

Cited by 64 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Additionally, some studies suggest that continuously tethered animals tend to have more skin injuries compared with systems with access to loafing areas, pasture and loose housed cattle (13,19). Although the proposed method for assessing the lameness in tied cows is different from the one for loose animals (8), at least severely lame may be reliably detected (22). The prevalence of lameness had wide range in the assessed farms, but not exceeding 16.2% per farm.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Screening of Selected Indicators of Dairy Cattle Welfare in Macedonia

Radeski

Janevsкi

Ilieski

2015

Macedonian Veterinary Review

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The welfare state of cattle in dairy farms in Macedonia has never been assessed previously. The objective of this study was to perform screening analysis of dairy cows welfare and to test the practical implementation of the Welfare Quality ® Assessment protocol for cattle in dairy farms in Macedonia. In ten small scale and large scale tie stall farms 23 measures were recorded related to 9 welfare criteria of 4 welfare principles (WP) described in the Welfare Quality ® Assessment protocol for dairy cows. The mean percentage of very lean cows was 40.5±9.1%. All assessed farms were not providing access to pasture and an outdoor loafing area. Regarding cleanliness, the presence of dirty udder, upper leg/flank and lower leg was 65.2±9.0%, 85.5±8.0% and 86.5±5.8%, respectively. The overall prevalence of lameness was 5.6±5.0%, and for mild and severe alterations it was 30.8±5.8% and 54.1±4.6%, respectively. The ocular and vulvar discharge, diarrhea, dystocia, percentage of downer cows and mortality rate exceeded the warning and alarm threshold. The avoidance -distance test classified 70.4±6.8% as animals that can be touched or approached closer than 50cm, with overall score of 42.9±3.5. This screening reveals that the most welfare concerns are found in the WP Good Feeding and Good Housing. The on-farm welfare assessment using the full protocol on a representative sample of farms in the country is highly recommended for emphasizing the key points for improving the animal welfare in Macedonian dairy farms.Key words: welfare assessment, cattle, dairy farms, animal based measures INTRODUCTIONThe maintenance of good animal welfare is an essential part of dairy production systems. Farmer's strong commitment to animal welfare in dairy cattle and appropriate dairy herd management is driven by fulfilling the physiological and behavioral needs of the animal, compliance with the relevant international (1, 2) and national animal welfare regulations (3,4), and respecting the consumer expectations for animal welfare standards in the food industry (5).The implementation of welfare standards must be accompanied by proper assessment which SCREENING OF SELECTED INDICATORS OF DAIRY 44in order to maximize benefits (7). The European Welfare Quality® Project was set out to develop scientifically sound tools to assess animal welfare on-farm. The acquired data provides feedback to animal unit managers about the welfare status of their animals and is translated into accessible and understandable information on the welfare status of food producing animals, including dairy cattle (8). This paper uses selected indicators for assessment of animal welfare designed by this project.Currently, a total number of 238 000 of cattle are kept in the dairy sector in Macedonia (9) out of which about 50% are milking cows with a total milk production of 350 million liters and an annual average of milk yield of 2,928 L per cow (10). The dairy farms are categorized in three categories: 1) traditional farmers with up to 3 cows; 2) family farms with 5 -20 milking...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Screening of Selected Indicators of Dairy Cattle Welfare in Macedonia

Radeski

Janevsкi

Ilieski

2015

Macedonian Veterinary Review

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“…Lameness was assessed using in-stall lameness scores developed by Leach et al (2009) and validated by Gibbons et al (2014). Cows were individually video recorded using a Sony DCRSR88 camera (Sony, Tokyo, Japan) in their stalls from behind for 2.5 min.…”

Section: Animal-based Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prevalence of and risk factors for hock and knee injuries on dairy cows in tiestall housing in Canada

Nash

Kelton

DeVries

et al. 2016

Journal of Dairy Science

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Leg injuries on dairy cows are a common and highly visible welfare concern on commercial dairy farms. With greater attention being placed on food animal welfare and limited research being conducted on tiestall farms, this study aimed to identify prevalence and risk factors for hock and knee injuries on dairy cows housed in tiestall barns in Ontario (n=40) and Quebec (n=60). A sample of 40 cows was purposively selected per farm and several animal- and farm-based measures were taken. Both hocks and both knees on each cow were scored as injured (presence of lesions or swelling) or not injured (no alterations or hair loss), and the highest score of each of the 2 knees and the 2 hocks was considered the cow's hock or knee score. Possible animal- and farm-based risk factors were incorporated into 2 separate multivariable logistic models for hock injuries and knee injuries respectively at the cow level. Mean (±SD) percentage of cow with hock injuries per farm was found to be 56±18% and mean percentage of knee injuries per farm was found to be 43±23%. Animal-based factors found to be associated with a greater odds of hock injuries at the cow level were increased days in milk (DIM), lower body condition score (BCS), lameness, higher parity, higher cow width, median lying bout duration, and median number of lying bouts. Environmental factors found to be associated with hock injuries at the cow level were province, stall width, tie rail position, stall base, chain length, and age of stall base. Animal-based factors found to be associated with knee injuries at the cow level were DIM, BCS, and median lying time. Environmental factors found to be associated with knee injuries at the cow level were stall width, chain length, province, stall base, and bed length. Quadratic and interaction terms were also identified between these variables in both the hock and knee models. This study demonstrates that hock and knee injuries are still a common problem on tiestall dairy farms in Canada. Several animal- and housing-based factors contribute to their presence. Further research to confirm causal relationships between these factors would help identify the cause of knee and hock injuries and determine how to best reduce the incidence of injuries in cows on commercial tiestall dairy farms in Canada.

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“…The method used to score the cows for lameness in the stall was Table 1 Description of lesion scores assigned to cows (Gibbons et al, 2012). Leach et al (2009) and adapted by Gibbons et al (2014), who showed this stall lameness scoring method is strongly correlated with that obtained from gait scoring. Scoring involved observing the cows in the tiestall for four behaviors.…”

Section: Lameness Scoresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can automated measures of lying time help assess lameness and leg lesions on tie-stall dairy farms?

Charlton

Bouffard

Gibbons

et al. 2016

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

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a b s t r a c tThe time that dairy cows spend lying down is an important measure of their comfort and lameness and injuries to hocks and knees are associated with alterations in lying time. We examined whether automated measures of lying time could identify cows and farms with problems of lameness or leg lesions. Data were collected from 40 lactating Holstein dairy cows from each of 100 tie-stall farms. The occurrence of lameness, hock and knee injuries was recorded and lying times were recorded automatically using accelerometers. There was large variation between individual cows, and between farms in all measures of lying time. At the cow level, there was no relationship (P > 0.10) between being lame and daily duration of lying time. A lower daily duration of lying time was found among cows with hock injuries (mean ± SE: non-injured = 12.79 ± 0.06 h, injured = 12.21 ± 0.06 h; P < 0.001) and cows with knee injuries (mean ± SE: non-injured = 12.54 ± 0.05 h, injured = 12.25 ± 0.06 h; P = 0.04) than those without lesions. The median daily duration of lying time on a farm was negatively correlated with the prevalence of lameness (r p = −0.27, P = 0.006), of hock injuries (r p = −0.35, P = 0.003) and of knee injuries (r p = −0.28, P = 0.004). A canonical discriminant function with canonical coefficients of 0.63 for mean daily duration of lying down, and of 0.54 for mean bout frequency could correctly identify 72% of the farms that were above the median for percent of cows with hock or knee injuries or being lame (linear discriminant function: constant = −95.10, daily duration = 11.39, bout frequency = 4.83) and 68% of the farms below the median (linear discriminant function: constant = −106.95, daily duration = 11.92, bout frequency = 5.30) (Wilks Lambda test P = 0.002). A criterion of a median lying time between 12 h and 13 h alone could identify over 60% of farms above or below the median for lameness, hock and knee lesion prevalence. Automated measures of lying time may be a useful animal-based measure to indicate farms with a high percentage of lame cows or cows with leg lesions.

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Assessing lameness in cows kept in tie-stalls

Cited by 64 publications

References 23 publications

Screening of Selected Indicators of Dairy Cattle Welfare in Macedonia

Screening of Selected Indicators of Dairy Cattle Welfare in Macedonia

Prevalence of and risk factors for hock and knee injuries on dairy cows in tiestall housing in Canada

Can automated measures of lying time help assess lameness and leg lesions on tie-stall dairy farms?

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