Diurnal behaviors and herd characteristics of dairy cows housed in a compost-bedded pack barn system under hot and humid conditions

Abstract

With international demand for production systems aimed at thermal comfort and animal welfare, milk producers have become increasingly interested in compost barns. However, doubts about the behavioral aspects of cows in tropical and subtropical climates remain, because the compost barn system offers a larger bed area per animal at a lower stocking rate. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether the diurnal behaviors, hygiene and lameness of crossbred dairy cows are influenced by different number of lactations when housed in a compost-bedded pack barn system under hot and humid conditions. Crossbred cows (Holstein and Jersey), which were divided into two treatments based on number of lactations (primiparous and multiparous cows), were evaluated during lactation (n=12). The study was conducted from September 2015 to February 2016 in a compost barn in the southwest region of the state of Paraná, Brazil. Daytime behavior was observed between milking schedules using focal observations with 0/1 sampling. Cow hygiene and lameness were evaluated using subjective scores ranging from 1 to 4 and 1 to 5, respectively. Animal behavior and welfare was analyzed using Bayesian inference with a mixed effects model. The probabilities of dyspnea and pushing behaviors were higher (P<0.05) in multiparous cows, and the probability increased during the hottest hours of the day. For both multiparous and primiparous cows, the agonistic behaviors of pushing, butting and chasing peaked during the afternoon. Eating behaviors had the highest likelihood values (0.8 at 0800 h). The cows preferred to remain lying down in the morning, while rest and standing rumination were preferred in the afternoon. Primiparous cows were cleaner than multiparous cows, and the hygiene score for this group was significantly lower (P<0.05). The hygiene and lameness scores for all animals were low, and the highest scores were 1 and 2. In conclusion, multiparous cows exhibited more frequent agonistic behaviors during the hottest hours of the day. Regarding hygiene and lameness scores, multiparous cows exhibited a higher degree of dirtiness compared with the primiparous cows.

Invited review: Compost-bedded pack barns for dairy cows

“…Ouweltjes and Smolders (2014) also found more frequent positive interactions (allogrooming, or social licking) in herds housed in CBP than in other housing systems. Recently, Pilatti et al (2019) observed the social behavior of cows in CBP under hot and humid conditions. The multiparous cows exhibited significantly more pushing behavior than the primiparous cows, especially during the hottest hours of the day.…”

Compost barns in Brazilian Subtropical region (Part 1): facility, barn management and herd characteristics

“…In these regions during the hottest times of the day (maximums up to 35.9 °C and THI of 83 at 15h00), cows crowd into areas with mixing fans blowing on them and they are panting. This stress pattern may be trigger disputes over resources such as ventilation, water and space (Pilatti et al, 2018).…”

“…This finding may be related to the animals not being under direct solar radiation. Changes in room temperature affect body temperature, by increasing rectal temperature, respiratory rate, surface temperature, and activate thermoregulatory responses to maintain thermostability (Pilatti et al, 2018;Mota et al, 2019).…”

“…Compost bedded pack barns (CB) first appeared in the United States and are spreading worldwide, in countries such as Israel (Klaas et al, 2010), the United States of America (Barberg et al, 2007a;Barberg et al, 2007b;Janni et al, 2007) and Brazil (Fávero et al, 2015;Costa et al, 2018;Pilatti et al, 2018). This housing system has demonstrated satisfactory results in relation to animal comfort (Pilatti et al, 2018;Mota et al, 2019), improved hygiene and lameness scores (Costa et al, 2018;Pilatti et al, 2018), as well as good productivity per animal (Barberg et al, 2007a;Black et al, 2013). The CB includes a resting bedded pack area, usually filled with organic material and where the composting process takes place.…”

Spatio-Thermal Variability and Behaviour as Bio-Thermal Indicators of Heat Stress in Dairy Cows in a Compost Barn: A Case Study

“…The observations were performed by three trained observers, blinded to treatment, who alternated between each treatment on each new observation day. Behaviours were evaluated using a previously proposed ethogram [8,18], as described in Table 2. In addition, aiming a better understanding about the manure deposition from congregate in in possible better ventilated areas, we divided the barn in a grid of 18 quadrants uniformed distributed (Figure 1).…”