Comfy Cows - Providing Low-Stress Environment

Increasing your dairy farm’s efficiency doesn’t have to compromise animal well-being. Improving cow comfort can also be a longer term investment to increase your income.

Paying attention to details is key. Pause during your daily routine to consider how you might implement management changes to improve the well-being of your cows. Problems that affect your cows’ behaviour have a direct impact on productivity.

Also, as the public becomes more aware and sensitized to issues surrounding the welfare of food production animals, increased emphasis is placed on responsible animal husbandry practices. Examples of this abound in the European Union.

Obvious changes in a cow’s behaviour may indicate stress of some sort. Stressed cows—those not eating or drinking as much as they otherwise might—aren’t reaching their full production potential. Learn to recognize these symptoms and address the problems causing them.

Cows that are comfortable in their environment are healthier animals. Healthier animals have less stress and are higher producers.

If you’re retrofitting an older barn or building a new facility, ensure a cow-friendly design to encourage production. A stressful environment can reduce production by as much as one to five litres per cow per day. Here are some important areas to consider:

Stall Comfort

In the natural environment, a cow is designed to eat, lie down, eat, and lie down, over and over again. A housing system that makes it uncomfortable for her to lie down disrupts this cycle.

Cows forced to stand for prolonged periods have reduced dry matter intake (DMI) and, as a result, lower milk production. These animals may also suffer from laminitis, reduced longevity, weight loss and reproductive problems. Any of these conditions may take a cow out of the production cycle and incur high veterinary costs or necessitate premature culling—none of which puts money in your pocket.

Cows generally have several decisions to make before they lie down. Ask yourself the following questions to determine whether the stalls might be uncomfortable and need modification.

• Is the stall height relative to the alley too high? Eight inches seems to be ideal.
• Do the cows move around the free-stall area confidently, or do they hesitate?
• Cows spend more than half of their time lying down, and a lot of time getting up and down. Can they perform these functions without striking the stall dividers or the neck rail? Cows require adequate lunge space, as well as psychological space, between stall front and any solid barrier to rise and lie down.
• Do cows spend a lot of time standing in their stalls? Perhaps the stalls are either too short or too narrow. Seventy-five percent of stall-related cow comfort problems occur once the animals lie down. If they can’t rise, it’s a problem for the cows and a bigger problem for you. Cows that lie down for prolonged periods visit the feed bunk less often. So they consume less dry matter too.(1)

If you tune in to what your cows have to say, you’ll find they’ll tell you how well stalls are performing. Swollen, abraded hocks or swollen knees are excellent indicators of stall problems. Abscesses or bruises on hocks and rump areas indicate that cows injure themselves while attempting to rise or lie down.

University of Alberta researchers suggest, tongue-in-cheek, this evaluation of your barn’s comfort level:

• get a pillow, a blanket and a ball-peen hammer;
• go to the barn and count the number of cows lying down, the number standing and the number eating. Compare that to the number of cows you would see standing around if the cows were on pasture;
• Enter a typical free stall, stand for a moment and then fall to your knees. How does that feel? If you are willing to do this over and over, your free stalls are probably soft enough. If not, how do you think a cow feels about dropping to sore knees several times a day, day after day?
• Now pick up the ball-peen hammer and whack yourself on the knee. Make it good and sore. Again, drop to your knees repeatedly in the free stall. How does that feel? Any ideas why your cows are standing all day?
• Pick up your pillow and blanket, select a typical free stall and take a nap. Go ahead and curl up in there. Is it comfortable? Would you be able to sleep there for 305 days in a row and feel 100 per cent the next day?(2)

Despite its tongue-in-cheek approach, this evaluation isn’t far removed from what dairy cows could experience daily. Yet discomfort is unnecessary due to many recent innovations in stall floor surfaces. Rubber crumb-filled mattresses, rubber mats and even waterbeds are available.

Research done at the University of Guelph demonstrated that cows, when given the choice, preferred rubber mats over concrete and mattresses over the rubber mats. The research also revealed that the mattress-based stalls were occupied 85 per cent of the time and that the use of rubber mats resulted in a greater incidence of swollen hocks.(3)

Sand was not used in this study. Other research has shown, however, that clean, clay-free sand, while somewhat hard on manure disposal equipment, is one of the most economical and effective surfaces preferred by cows. Sand moves readily under a cow’s stress points and forms to the shape of her body. Growth of mastitis-causing organisms is minimal and any sand spilled into the alley provides additional traction for the animals.

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Warm Weather Precautions

Poor ventilation resulting in heat stress can reduce milk production as much as 25 per cent. With delayed recovery, breeding difficulties with slow fetal development or even death can occur. The incidence of disease, including mastitis, also increases in hot weather. Naturally ventilated barns afford air exchange that carries away hot air and moisture. All cows should have free access to drinking water. Heat stress can also be minimized if cows are not overcrowded in the pre-milking holding areas for more than 45 to 60 minutes in hot weather.(4)

Floor Surfaces

Free-stall barns must have floor surfaces that provide cows with adequate traction. Every day a cow in free-stall housing can walk from 80 to 2,500 metres, more than two kilometres.

High stocking density or slippery floors will discourage movement, especially by subordinate cows. This may result in competition for restricted amounts of feed or limited bunk space.

A properly prepared hexagonally-grooved floor is far superior to a smooth surface, which increases the risk of injury and discourages movement. Infrequent floor cleaning leads to wet surfaces. These in turn cause soft hooves and other foot-related problems.(5)

Barn Layout

Traffic flow in a free-stall barn should permit a circular pattern to allow all animals access to waterers and the feed bunk. Timid cows or younger heifers may be reluctant to enter a dead-end alley for fear of being trapped by a dominant herd mate.

To encourage feed and water intake, the barn should have a 12-foot-wide cross-over for every 80 feet of alley to permit traffic flow past the waterers. Waterers installed in the crossovers should offer a minimum of 21 feet of trough for every 100 cows.

Your Bottom Line

Many of these concepts translate into higher initial costs, either renovating an existing barn or constructing a new facility. However, implementing these measures will increase efficiency and production as a direct result of enhanced cow comfort, both physical and psychological.

An additional investment of $50,000 to ensure cow comfort, spread over 400 cows for a 15-year barn-life results in a daily cost of a mere 2.2 cents per cow. These improvements can be paid for with the income over feed costs from less than 0.25 kilograms of milk. The investment will translate into profits in the years to come.(6)

Listen to your cows. More often than not, they will have something to tell you. If they’re standing as a result of being housed in an environment they find unfriendly and stressful, they’re pulling $20 out of your wallet every day. If they’re eating, drinking and being milked, they’re making you money.

This article first appeared in the May 2000 Ruminations column of the Ontario Milk Producer magazine.

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