Measuring the Feeding Behavior of Lactating Dairy Cows in Early to Peak Lactation

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to: 1) objectively define meal criteria (minimum interval between meals) of free-stall housed cows fed via a feed alley, 2) determine which measures of feeding behavior were most repeatable, and 3) describe changes in the feeding behavior from early to peak lactation. An electronic monitoring system was used to record individual cow presence (hits; 6-s resolution) at the feed alley for 21 lactating cows for three 8-d periods: period 1, 35 +/- 16 (mean +/- SD), period 2, 57 +/- 16, and period 3, 94 +/- 16 DIM. A mixture distribution model was used to calculate the meal criterion (27.74 min) by fitting the log10 frequency distribution of the intervals between hits. The within-cow repeatability was highest for feeding activity (hits d(-1)) and intensity (hits per meal min), moderate for total daily mealtime (min d(-1)) and meal duration (min meal(-1)), and lowest for meal frequency (meals d(-1)). From periods 1 to 2, all cows showed increases in total daily mealtime, meal frequency, and meal duration; however, cows with lower meal frequencies and feeding intensity in period 1 showed the greatest increases. Cows with high feeding activity and intensity during period 2 showed proportionally greater increases during period 3. These results illustrate that some measures of feeding behavior are highly repeatable within cows, but variable between cows and across stages of lactation. Thus, tests of treatment effects on feeding behavior should be within cow and control for days in milk.

Use of novel sensors combining local positioning and acceleration to measure feeding behavior differences associated with lameness in dairy cattle

“…We noted reductions in feeding behavior overnight compared with morning and afternoon (Figure 4), which agrees with the results of DeVries et al (2003) and Wagner-Storch and Palmer (2003); however, this in contrast to the findings of Nechanitzky et al (2016), who reported a trend for lame cows to have a shorter feeding time at night and lying for over an hour longer than nonlame cows. The cows in the current study were in a larger group (120 vs. 40) and had been subject to less mixing than those in a previous study (Nechanitzky et al, 2016).…”

Effect of rumen fill on intake of fresh perennial ryegrass in young and mature dairy cows grazing or zero-grazing fresh perennial ryegrass

“…It has been established that young ruminants have a lower molar occlusal contact area; this can reduce jaw movement efficiency to reduce the particle size of food during mastication (Perez-Barberia and Gordon, 1998). Several studies showed that the chewing behavior and more specifically the intake rate were either not affected (Friggens et al, 1998;DeVries et al, 2003) or increased (Abrahamse et al, 2008) by the stage of lactation, which was in contradiction with the results of the present experiment. A study of Pulido and Leaver (2003) showed, by comparing two groups of grazing dairy cows, that the level of milk production could increase the intake rate.…”

On the influence of the alternation of two different cooling systems on dairy cow daily activities

“…The execution of the computer-vision based system allowed the detection of dairy cow behaviours with a high level of accuracy as proved by the good values of the sensitivity indices (i.e., approximately 92% for the lying behaviour and 86% for feeding and standing ones) which yielded the percentage of cow behaviours correctly classified over the total number of cow bred in the area of the barn under study (Porto et al, 2013(Porto et al, , 2015. Three different behaviours were analysed among those most frequently studied (Overton et al, 2002;DeVries et al, 2003aDeVries et al, , 2003bFregonesi et al, 2007;Provolo and Riva, 2009;Bava et al, 2012) because they are highly related to the comfort of dairy cows: i) feeding, which refers to the standing still position of the cows in the feeding alley with the head through the rack; ii) standing, which refers to the standing still position of the cows in the alley or inside the cubicle or to the deambulation; iii) lying, which refers to all the possible decubitus position of the cows inside the cubicle. The four usual lying positions are the following: long position when the cow lies with the head outstretched forward; short position when the cow lies with the head tilted along one side of the body; narrow position when the cow lies on the sternum with the neck slightly bent, the lower limbs close to the body and the upper limbs that may be outstretched; large position when the cow lies on one side with the lower limbs relaxed.…”