AGASSIZ, B.C. – The way a cow stands can tell producers a lot about how productive it will be in the milk parlour.
Jeff Rushen has been automating the process of lameness detection in dairy cattle. The Agriculture Canada researcher in Agassiz, B.C., said the work will soon be transferred into dairy production practices in Canada and beyond.
Lameness limits dairy producers’ income from reduced milk production as the animals falter from hoof pain. If not caught and treated early, cows will be culled years ahead of when they might be otherwise.
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The United States Department of Agriculture estimated in 2005 that each case of lameness costs the dairy producer an average of $403 and that 15 percent of cows are culled early because of the condition.
Lameness is caused by many factors including nutrition, feeding strategies, moisture in the barn environment, abrasive or slippery floor surfaces, stall comfort and design, and events that hurt hoof health such as fever, age, time off feed or poor feed and metabolic problems. Identification and management of problem areas in an individual herd is time consuming and can be difficult.
Rushen said researchers have long suspected that animals don’t begin to show injury or sickness until the condition becomes severe. The delay in treatment increases the likelihood of chronic lameness or other serious illness developing.
Research at the facility, jointly operated by the agriculture department and the University of British Columbia, is proving that animals are suffering long before they begin to limp.
Rushen’s research automates the process of detection by dividing the floor of a livestock squeeze into four, with each segment having a scale load cell. Researchers are able to observe animals responding to a sore foot when they place more weight on the other three.
“We see this pattern of behaviour long before we see any clinical signs of illness,” he said.
The load cell design can be set up in the milking parlour stall, which would allow farmers to observe the behaviour earlier and begin intervention.
“There is a whole animal welfare issue attached to early detection of animal pain … beyond the economic returns available to dairy producers,” said Rushen.
Other automated research is providing early warnings of health problems.
UBC researcher and graduate student Katherine Schirmann is also working on automation of early illness detection.
“In Israel, dairy farms have recently begun using these methods of observing animal behaviour,” she said.
Schirmann tapes inexpensive motion sensing devices to animals’ legs to evaluate the activities involved with standing, lying down, queuing for feed and water and time spent chewing cuds and eating.
“Early detection is key to early treatment at much lower costs and in many cases avoiding problems that may be contagious or become chronic,” she said.
Nelson Dinn, the dairy centre manager at the Agassiz farm, said the centre is unique.
“For Canadian producers of livestock, this place has a great ability and capacity to develop transferable technologies that will improve their businesses, the welfare of the animals and add to their net returns.”
The automated systems monitor individual animal weights while they eat and drink, weighing out what they consume and how long it takes them to do it.
Video cameras allow researchers to remotely view animal behaviour, which is especially useful in current dairy heifer calf group housing research.
“Farmers rely on their eyes and ears to tell them when animal behaviour has changed. But farmers have to operate an ever increasing number of animals to make a living. They are having to rely on less experienced staff with greater turnover. That means those highly experienced eyes and ears that once formed the front line in disease detection are no longer there. We’re developing some new tools to assist them,” Dinn said.
