Lecture 29 Flashcards
What are the different types of dairy cattle marketing and welfare depending on the country?
- Canada: regulated, quota system
- USA: open, competitive market
- Overall condition of cull cows is better in Canada (better wellfare, not pushing our cows to extremes)
- North America: cull cows are shipped through auction yards - high incidence of lame/downer cows
- EU: cull cows must go directly to slaughter yard - better conditions because of shorter transport time
Where do codes come from for dairy cattle?
- National Farm Animal Care Council (alberta)
- A division of Animal Health Canada
- Governmental Umbrella organization (federal, provincial industry support)
What are the 2020 5 key issues in dairy cattle?
- Cow calf separation
- Facility design- indoors
- Pain control
- Lameness and injuries
- End of life management
How is the dairy code implemented?
Industry Group: Dairy Farmers of Canada
* Develops a farm audit program based on Code
* DFC’s “proAction program”
Third party auditor: Holstein Canada
* Implements the ‘proAction’ audit
* Hires and trains auditors
* Coordinate audits with Dairy cow classification and ROP visits
what types of measures do animal welfare audits look for?
System Based
* Easily measured (+)
* E.g. Farm records, housing
Animal Based (ABM)
* Actually looking at stock (++)
* Time consuming (-)
* Subjective scoring/observer bias (+/-)
* Body Condition Score
* Hock, neck and knee injuries
* Lameness (mobility)
What are the 2 requirements forlameness and leg injuries?
- Personnel must regularly observe cattle for signs of lameness or leg injuries, to diagnose and treat them quickly
- To minimize lameness and leg injuries, producers must set thresholds for the occurrence of lameness and leg injuries and take corrective actions when the thresholds are exceeded
What are risk factors for lameness?
– Poor comfort, abnormal lying
– Increased standing time
– Poor nutrition, low body score
– Head lunge impediments
– flooring
What does lameness in dairy cattle look like?
- Head movement
- Back posture
- Leg placement
- Walking speed, rhythm
Why is rubber flooring better than concrete for dairy cattle?
- Longer strides, higher stride height
- More overlap, shorter triple support time
- Faster gait and lower gait score vs concrete
- Lame cows showed greater gait improvement on rubber than non-lame cows
- More secure footing
Why is comfort important for dairy cattle?
- Lying time is correlated with increased milk production
- When lying, blood flow to udder increases 28%
- Increased time standing is related to lameness and poor hoof health
What are aspects of stall design to consider to increase comfort for dairy cattle?
- Hock lesions - most common in mattresses, least common on sand
- Udder health - sand is cleaner (fewer bacteria), than sawdust, less chance of teat contact and mastitis
- Neck rail - prevents cows from standing in the stall, but reduces defecation, helps keep stalls clean
Do dairy cows need grass?
- Assumed that grass access is required for ‘welfare friendly’ systems
- However- high producing cows may not get enough nutrition on pasture
- cow chose to stay inside
What are the requirements for calf housing?
- Calves must have a bed that provides comfort, insulation, warmth, dryness and traction
- Bare concrete is not acceptable
- Housing must allow calves to easily stand up, lie down, turn around, adopt normal resting postures, and have visual contact with other calves
- House unweaned calves individually or in well managed groups of less than 10 calves
- Provide calves with an oppurtunity to exercise and engage in normal social behaviour
- Position hutches to minimize environmental impacts (e.g., out of the wind, facing south, shaded areas)
True or false: early social housing is known to benefit cognitive development
True
