Influence of feed delivery frequency on behavioural activity of dairy cows in freestall barns
Articolo
Data di Pubblicazione:
2013
Citazione:
Influence of feed delivery frequency on behavioural activity of dairy cows in freestall barns / E. Riva, G. Mattachini, L. Bava, A. Sandrucci, A. Tamburini, G. Provolo. - In: JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING. - ISSN 1974-7071. - 44:S. 2(2013), pp. e39.197-e39.202. ((Intervento presentato al 10. convegno AIIA 13 Horizons in agricultural, forestry and biosystems engineering tenutosi a Viterbo, Italy nel 2013 [10.4081/jae.2013.(s1):e39].
Abstract:
Research on feeding management in more competitive free-stall settings indicates that frequency of delivery of fresh feed stimulates feed bunk attendance and can affect other aspects of cows’ time budgets apart from feeding such as time spent standing vs. lying down. The objective of this study was to examine how the frequency of feed delivery affects the behavior in two farms, one with a conventional and one with automatic milking system (AMS). The feeding frequency was varied
from two to three times per day in the conventional dairy farm; one
to two times per day in the AMS farm. The experiment was carried out
in two different seasons. All behaviours of the cows were monitored in
continuous by video recording. As expected, behavioral indices have
been significantly affected by environmental conditions both in conventional farm and AMS farm. The variation in the frequency of feed
delivery seems to affect the cow behavioural activity only in a limited
way and modify only slightly the daily averages of the time spent in different
activities mainly increasing the time cows spend standing (+4-5%).
Tipologia IRIS:
01 - Articolo su periodico
Keywords:
dairy cows ; behaviour ; environmental condition ; automatic milking system
Elenco autori:
E. Riva, G. Mattachini, L. Bava, A. Sandrucci, A. Tamburini, G. Provolo
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