Cows vote for comfort

by Polly Stanley

airy cows are lying down on the job -- at least when there's a mattress underfoot -- say Kemptville researchers.

Dennis McKnight, Jonathan Morgan and Paul Sharpe from the animal science section at Kemptville College recommend that producers consider mattresses for dairy cow housing. Their suggestion stems from a study comparing six different bases for use in free stalls -- and their finding that dairy cows preferred commercially available livestock mattresses to any other base.

Their research was initiated in response to producers' demands for practical alternatives to an earthen base. Producers want something that's inexpensive and easy to maintain, while providing comfort and safety to the cows.

"Free stalls with an earthen base can provide excellent comfort and safety for the dairy cow," says McKnight, "but maintaining an earthen base is an endless and burdensome chore. An alternative is needed."

The Kemptville Dairy Research Station recently renovated a slatted-floor beef feedlot into free-stall housing for dry dairy cows. This provided a unique opportunity to test a variety of free-stall bases and their effects on animal care.

McKnight and his team measured the maintenance requirements and visual appearance of the bases over 11 weeks. Next, they did trials over 39 days in which two cows with no previous experience in the pen were free to choose among stalls with all six base types. The cows' preferences were determined by the number of times each stall was entered, the cows' positions in the different stalls and how long they held each position.

Finally, the researchers looked at which stalls the cows chose in a competitive situation, when there were the same number of stalls as cows.

Here's what they found. Daily scrapings of stalls and weekly application of wood shavings were all it took to maintain an acceptable appearance of each base type. In general, they found that everyday maintenance requirements were highest for mattresses and lowest for clay. But this was simply a reflection of how often each base type was used.

When cows had access to each stall base in a non-competitive situation, they chose the stalls with mattresses most often. And they tended to lie down -- a general indicator of comfort. This also held true under competitive circumstances. In fact, in those trials, the mattress-based stalls were occupied more than 85 per cent of the time. The remaining cows had no choice but to take an alternative.

The researchers didn't assess hock injury (a joint in the hind leg) or swelling in their research. But previous studies have reported greater risk of swollen hocks on mats compared with mattresses.

"Based on this research, we suggest that dairy farmers consider installation of cow mattresses in free-stall dairy barns," says McKnight. "Maintenance requirements are low, and if the decision were up to the cows, they would choose mattresses."

This research was sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.