Cow comfort and free stall
design
A.W. Ceballos*, C.B. Tucker
and D.M. Weary
University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Dairy cattle housed in free stalls normally spend more than half of their time lying in their stalls. Work in our laboratory has shown that the design of the stall can affect stall usage, including lying time. When cows were restricted to one of four stalls of different dimensions (2x2 design: width x length), they lay down an average of 1.5 hours longer (P<0.01) in the wider stalls. However, when given free access to the four designs, they did not show a clear preference. In contrast to this top-down approach in which we test the effects of modifying existing stall designs, a bottom-up approach is also needed in which new designs are based on an improved understanding of the ways cows move when they get up and lie down. In a new project, we are using biomechanical methods to quantify the kinematics of standing up and lying down in Holstein dairy cattle. These techniques will allow us to describe the three-dimensional displacements of various body landmarks of cows placed in an unrestricted environment, and compare these values with those from cows using free stalls.