Short communication: The diurnal intake and behavior of dairy cows when access to a feed of consistent nutritive value is restricted

Abstract

The diurnal variation in pasture nutritive value adds a confounding factor to studies elucidating the effect of time of day on behavior. Our work separates the effect of time of day on both feeding and lying patterns for cows outdoors to enable the alignment of feeding behavior with feed management. We determined the diurnal intake patterns and behavior of dairy cows when the nutritive value of feed remained constant throughout 24 h in an outdoor environment, and when feed access was restricted. Nine nonlactating Holstein-Friesian cows (live weight 626 ± 53 kg, age 96 ± 33 mo; mean ± SD) were split into 3 groups of 3 and offered lucerne hay cubes (cube volume 32 mm) ad libitum according to 3 treatments: full access (FA, feed access 24 h), day access (DA, feed access between 0600 and 1800 h), and night access (NA, feed access between 1800 and 0600 h). Treatments were applied to individual cows in a crossover design with 7-d periods. During the last 4 d of each period, data were collected on feed intake, as well as feeding and lying behaviors. Total daily intake was greater for cows on the FA treatment (3.5% of BW) compared with the DA and NA treatments at 3.1 and 2.9% of BW, respectively. The cows with FA consumed 69% of their total intake during the day (0600-1800 h), with the greatest intake (39%) occurring during 1200 to 1800 h and only 12% of intake occurring during 2400 to 0600 h. Cows with DA consumed 56% of feed during 0600 to 1200 h and 44% during 1200 to 1800 h. In contrast, NA cows consumed more feed (74%) during the first 6 h period (1800-2400 h), thus maximizing lying time between 2400 and 0600 h. The time spent lying throughout daylight periods varied between treatments; however, total daily lying time was similar across the 3 treatments. This experiment shows the feeding and lying behaviors of cows when feed quality remains constant throughout 24 h, which will assist the formulation of variable feed allocation strategies for future testing in both robotic and conventional milking systems. Varying the quantity of feed offered throughout 24 h may benefit robot utilization at night in automatic milking systems through increased feeding activity, and as we observed, is likely to have little effect on lying time or DMI, with cows readily adapting to changes in feed management. Conversely, aligning feed on offer with preferred feeding time in conventional milking systems may increase the intake of high quality pasture.

Nighttime pasture access: Comparing the effect of production pasture and exercise paddock on milk production and cow behavior in an automatic milking system

“…As in our previous study (Kismul et al, 2018), there was no sign of the circadian eating rhythm, with a smaller eating event around dawn and a larger one around dusk, reported by others (e.g., Gibb et al, 1998;Rook, 2000;Taweel et al, 2004;John et al, 2017;Figure 4). Both groups had their largest grazing bout in the evening, whereas no cows were on pasture or even outdoors in the morning.…”

“…The 2.5 h of active grazing occurred during the evening with no grazing and thus no further roughage intake at nighttime. The period around dawn is often a major grazing period (Gibb et al, 1998;Rook, 2000;Taweel et al, 2004;John et al, 2017) and it is remarkable that cows in our experiment refrained from grazing at dawn, despite the presence of sufficient pasture to graze ( Table 2). The potential for increased pasture intake with nighttime grazing that was suggested by Charlton et al (2013) and indicated in our previous experiment (Kismul et al, 2018) was thus not realized.…”

Limiting total mixed ration availability alters eating and rumination patterns of lactating dairy cows

“…After eating the small amount of hay (0.55-0.7 kg), the cows did not eat large amounts of DM after a period of 5 h of feed restriction, and total DMI only tended to be lower for TMR-restricted cows (Cavallini et al, 2018). These data were collected after the 14-d adaptation period, and the cows had modified their intake behavior, as previously shown (Maulfair et al, 2013;John et al, 2017).…”

Suitability of somatic cell count, electrical conductivity, and lactate dehydrogenase activity in foremilk before versus after alveolar milk ejection for mastitis detection

“…Efficient mastitis detection provides opportunity to implement early and adequate treatment protocols and to avoid excessive use of antibiotics, maintaining good animal health and welfare by reducing soreness, pain and discomfort; enhancing recovery rate; and improving economic return to farmers (Milner et al, 1997;Lehmann et al, 2015). Currently, an increasing number of dairy farmers worldwide are choosing automatic milking systems (AMS), which allow farmers to maximize milking frequency (and potentially milk production per cow) and minimize labor costs (García and Fulkerson, 2005;Hovinen and Pyörälä, 2011;John et al, 2017). In AMS, the sensors that measure electrical conductivity (EC) are the in-line sensors most commonly used to detect mastitis.…”