Spacing of dairy cows at a food trough

Abstract

Enforced proximity of cows while feeding has implications both for production and welfare. To measure the preferred separation of dairy cows during feeding, a group of lactating Friesian-Holstein cows was observed in a cubicle house. A complete diet was offered ad libitum in a food trough. The trough was reached through a feed rail which was divided by vertical bars into 44 feeding positions, each 0.65 m wide. Records were made every 10 min from 11:00 to 16:00 h of which cows were feeding and of their positions. Agonistic interactions were recorded and cows were classified as low, medium and high ranking. When from 4 to 14 cows were feeding, positions chosen were non-random. Cows tended to clump together, but within each clump positions immediately adjacent to another cow were often avoided. When <4 or >14 cows were at the trough, their distribution was not significantly different from random. Choice of position was affected by dominance relationships. Neighbours similar in rank were a mean of 3.0 positions apart, dissimilar neighbours (low/medium or medium/high rank) were further apart (3.8 positions) and most dissimilar neighbours (low/high rank) had the greatest separation (4.4 positions).