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Associations between preventive hoof trimming, activity and resting behaviors
Introduction
Hoof trimming is a commonly recommend practice to prevent lameness, one of the dairy industry’s biggest animal well-being and economic issues. Unfortunately, limited scientific data exists to support our current hoof trimming (HT) practices and what affects HT has on cow behavior. The objective of this research is to determine the association between HT of non-lame cows and activity and resting behaviors.
Materials and Methods
A convenience sample of farms from the UK and Canada were recruited to participate. Selection criteria required that farms used free-stall housing, have a regular hoof trimming schedule and use either Afi PedoPlus or AfiACT2 (Afimilk, Ltd.) pedometers. Activity, milk yield, resting time, and resting bout information was collected daily at the time of milking. Hoof trimming data was collected from on farm records. The association between activity, resting behaviors and HT was evaluated by comparing the averages of the behavior parameter at different time points before and after HT. Time periods evaluated included; 1-10 days before HT, day of HT, 2-3, 4-7 and 8-10 days after HT. Models were created using linear regression with behavior as the outcome variable and including the fixed effects of farm, lactation number, milk yield and days in milk. Time period was forced into each model and a robust standard error was used to account for repeated measures.
Results
A total of 1393 cows were used in the analysis with average days in milk, lactation and milk yield being 182, 1.9, and 33.6 kg/day respectively. Activity and resting bouts were associated with every time period except for on the day after HT. Resting time was positively associated with all time periods after HT. Resting time increased from 21 to 27 minutes/day between 1-10 days after HT. Activity between 2-10 days after HT decreased by a minimum of 20 steps/hour and reached a maximum decrease of 27 steps/hour. Resting bouts increased from 0.2 to 0.4 bouts between 2-10 days after HT.
Conclusion
These results show that the HT process is associated with changes in activity, resting time, and resting bouts of the cow during the 10 days following HT. This indicates that there is an adjustment phase either due to the actual HT or due to the disruption of the cow’s daily routine during the HT process.
Keywords: activity, hoof trimming, rest