Effect of lameness on dairy cows’ visits to automatic milking systems

Abstract

. 2008. Effect of lameness on dairy cows' visits to automatic milking systems. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 88: 1Á8. Lameness is a major welfare problem for dairy cows and has important economic consequences. On-farm detection of lameness is difficult, and automated methods may be useful for early diagnoses. Lameness may reduce the efficiency of automated milking systems (AMS) if lame cows are less willing to visit the automatic milking unit voluntarily and poor attendance at milking units may help detect lameness. To determine whether a low frequency of visits in an AMS could serve as an indicator of lameness, data on the frequency of visits of 578 cows in 12 AMS on eight farms were collected. From each AMS, 22 cows (from a mean of 54 cows per AMS), were classified as either the 11 highest visitors or the 11 lowest visitors based on the total number of visits to the milking unit. These selected cows (n 0256) were videotaped while walking in a standard test area and their gait scored on a 5-point scale (1 0sound 5 0severely lame). Intra-and inter-observer reliability values between and within observers were high for gait scoring. Significant differences in gait scores between the two groups of cows (P B0.05) were found in 9 out of 12 AMS: high-visiting cows had better gait scores than low-visiting cows. Four percent of high visitors were classified as slightly lame and 32% of low visitors were classified as either slightly or severely lame. The overall numerical rating score was the most effective in discriminating between high and low visitors, and scoring each individual component of gait did not greatly improve discrimination between the two groups of cows. The frequency that dairy cows visit an AMS is related to their locomotory ability, and data from the AMS may help in the early detection of lameness.Key words: Cattle, lameness, automatic milking systems, behaviour, gait scoring Borderas, T. F., Fournier, A., Rushen, J. et de Passille´, A. M. B. 2008. Effect of lameness on dairy cows' visits to automatic milking systems. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 88: 1Á8. Les boiteries sont un proble`me de bien-eˆtre majeur pour les vaches laitie`res qui a des conse´quences e´conomiques importantes. Il est reconnu que la de´tection des boiteries est difficile a`faire pour les producteurs. Des me´thodes automatise´es seraient donc utiles pour assister au de´pistage haˆtif des vaches boiteuses. L'efficacite´des syste`mes de traite automatise´s (AMS) pourrait eˆtre re´duite si les vaches boiteuses sont moins dispose´es av isiter volontairement l'unite´de traite automatique (AMU). Ainsi, une fre´quence re´duite des visites aux unite´s de traite pourrait aider a`de´tecter les boiteries. Pour de´terminer si une basse fre´quence des visites du AMS pourrait servir a`de´pister les vaches boiteuses, les donne´es sur la fre´quence des visites de 578 vaches traites par 12 AMU sur huit fermes ont e´teŕ ecueillies. En utilisant le nombre total de visites au AMS, on a choisi, pour chaque AMS, les 11 plus hautes visiteuses et les 11 plus basse visiteuses ...

Manual and automatic locomotion scoring systems in dairy cows: A review

“…In two articles, Pearson correlation coefficients were reported for gait and posture traits (Flower and Weary, 2006;Borderas et al, 2008). Estimates for r > 0.7 were for tracking up, head bob, arched back and reluctance to bear weight, whereas for asymmetric gait and joint flexion presented r was < 0.7 (Flower and Weary, 2006).…”

“…The importance that raters assign to individual gait and posture traits has been studied by estimating correlation coefficients between scores of specific gait and posture traits and the locomotion score have been estimated by Borderas et al (2008) and Chapinal et al (2009).…”

“…However, most studies used the inappropriate Pearson correlation coefficient (Table 5). The Pearson correlation coefficient was probably selected as indicator to make an easier comparison among continuous scales (Flower and Weary, 2006;Borderas et al, 2008). A better statistic to estimate reliability for continuous scales is the intraclass correlation coefficient (Kottner et al, 2011).…”

Behaviour of lame cows: a review

“…The problem associated with early lameness detection may partly stem from the fact that average herd size is increasing and producers are pressed for time to spend with their animals. In the future identification of hoof lesions, such as changes in gait, time standing and lying or walking time, automated measures may be most suitable (Pastell and Kujala, 2007;Borderas et al, 2008;Weary et al, 2009;Tadich et al, 2010).…”

Use of animal based measures for the assessment of dairy cow welfare ANIBAM

“…This is labour saving and additionally the need for human presence may bias recordings since the presence of a human observer may increase the likelihood of the animals hiding any vulnerability ). Some of these data can be used for an automatic assessment of lameness such as visit to feeders and the automatic milking system (Borderas et al, 2008, Miguel-Pacheco et al, 2014, automatic recordings of lying time and lying bouts (Ito et al, 2010, weight distribution between the legs while walking and standing (Pastell and Kujala, 2007), automated image analysis (Song et al, 2008), image analysis of 3D video images of cow gait (Van Hertem et al, 2014) and activity meters (Chapinal et al, 2011).…”