Space-use patterns highlight behavioural differences linked to lameness, parity, and days in milk in barn-housed dairy cows.

ABSTRACT: Lameness is a key health and welfare issue affecting commercial herds of dairy cattle, with potentially significant economic impacts due to the expense of treatment and lost milk production. Existing lameness detection methods can be time-intensive, and under-detection remains a significant problem leading to delayed or missed treatment. Hence, there is a need for automated monitoring systems that can quickly and accurately detect lameness in individual cows within commercial dairy herds. Recent advances in sensor tracking technology have made it possible to observe the movement, behaviour and space-use of a range of animal species over extended time-scales. However, little is known about how observed movement behaviour and space-use patterns in individual dairy cattle relate to lameness,

SUBMITTER: Vazquez Diosdado JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6300209 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature