Seasonal variation of the lying and standing behavior indexes of dairy cattle at different daily time periods in free‐stall housing

Abstract

The lying and standing behavior of dairy cattle reveal whether dairy cattle housing is appropriate to cow comfort. Lying and standing behavior indexes, such as cow comfort index (CCI), cow stress index (CSI) and stall usage index (SUI) are often used as an indication of animal welfare. This study was performed to determine the seasonal and hourly variation of cow behavioral indexes at different daily time periods (DTP) and evaluate appropriate DTP better representing daily behavioral activity of dairy cattle in free-stall housing (FHS) in Konya, Turkey. Animal behaviors were videotaped for a total of 24 days (576 h) over four seasons in a FHS at a commercial dairy farm from November 2007 to March 2009 using continuous video data (24 h per day). The behaviors of cows in the barn were evaluated using 60-min scan sampling. All phenotypes were evaluated on an hourly basis during the experimental period. The results show how these indexes can be accurately evaluated by analyzing video recordings taken on DTP between 08.00-15.00 and 19.00-24.00 hours for autumn and summer and 10.00-12.00 and 20.00-22.00 hours for spring, instead of continuous observation (r > 0.93, P < 0.01). Consequently, the evaluated method provides saving time and labor to accurately analyze cow behavior instead of observations over a long time.