Hello, and welcome to SRUC's Dairy Research Center, here in Dumfries, Scotland. Today we're gonna talk to you about dairy farms and dairy cow welfare. We're gonna go through how cows are farmed, how we make cows into productive animals. And hopefully by the end of this lecture you'll understand where the welfare challenges are for cows, and maybe some solutions to improve the situation. We're gonna focus on the welfare of the cows here in this farm in Scotland today. But it's basically the same system that you would see elsewhere in Europe and also in North America. Elsewhere in the world, these types of systems are becoming more common. And the welfare problems that we see on farm will be replicated wherever you go. The cows we have on farm here are the black and white, large black and white Holstein Friesian breed. And these cows are the most popular milking cow in the world today, particularly in North America and in Europe. They are become more popular elsewhere in the world, and we'll come back that a wee bit later too. I wanna talk a lot about the research that underpins the evidence that there are welfare challenges these dairy cows have to face from day to day. But you can find the references to this in your Coursera course page, if you want to go in a bit more detail later on. Other than that, let's go round the farm and see how these cows live, see if we can find any well fair solutions to problems. And also I hope you find this lecture interesting, informative, and it brings up lots of questions for you to ask on the discussion board, and for me to hopefully answer on the Google Hangouts at the end of the week. This is the accommodation for our milking cows here at the Dairy Research Center. There are places here for the animals to lie down, comfortable bedding, there are places for the animals to socially interact. And there's also places for the animals to eat and drink. Let's start at the feed face, shall we? Cows have access to a feed face where they can eat silage, which is conserved grass or other forages. And concentrate foods, which are mixed together to form a total mix ration. When new food is put down here, cows usually come to feed all at once. Most farms try to ensure there's enough space for all the cows to feed at once. Cows are hierarchical animals, and dominant animals will displace subordinate ones. Research has shown that cows will carry out fewer aggressive interactions at the feed face where they're in individual head spaces rather than feed faces like this one. Where the cows could easily push each other out of the way. However, as you can see here now, we don't have that many cows at this feed face, so there's plenty of space for them all to feed together. Easy access to fresh clean water is vital for dairy cattle. High yielding cows, such as these Holsteins on our farm, need over 100 liters a day, and more when the temperatures get hotter. Many people underestimate how much a cow can drink at any one time. As our farm is set up for research, we have both feeders and drinkers that can measure the individual intakes. If we watch this cow we can see how many liters of water she can drink in a very short space of time. Cows are provided with beds called cubicles or free stalls. These cubicles are large enough for cows to stand comfortably with all four feet on the bed and also to lie down comfortably in a variety of different postures. They maintain hygiene because the feces and the urine go out the back into the passageway. Farmers will bed their cubicles or free stalls like these ones, with mats or mattresses, and then provide additional bedding. We've got here some sawdust that keeps the cows comfortable. In different places of the world, cubicles or free stalls are bedded with sand, straw. They may also be bedded with rice husks. Research has shown that cows, understandably, like their bedding to be dry rather than damp. And that they prefer sand over other bedding types. If cubicles are not bedded well, then animals can get rubs or swellings on their hocks and their knees. And we'll have little bit more of a look at that in the parlor later. If cubicles are not comfortable, then cows can get lame and we'll again, we'll talk a little bit more about that later too. Cows spend a lot of the day lying down. They ruminate or chew their cud for longer when they don't lie down. Cows are extremely motivated to lie down somewhere comfortable. If cubicles or free stalls are not comfortable enough, cows will sometimes lie down in the passageways, getting very mucky. Cows that are not comfortable will also spend more time standing or perching in their cubicles or passageways. This can lead to an increased likelihood of lameness. Being out at pasture gives cows the opportunity to lie down comfortably in whatever posture they wish and on their own or in groups. However, this exposes them to weather conditions and can lead to disease transfer in overstocked fields. Research has also shown that cattle will choose fields for lying down and not for grazing when food is provided in main shed. We could conclude that in an ideal situation, cows would be given the choice of where they're able to lie down, having access to fields when they want to use them. However this is not always practical for many farms, and almost impossible here on our farm during the winter. Therefore, we have to ensure that the inside accommodation is as good as possible. If you were to ask any dairy farmer here in the UK what the three biggest welfare challenges were for their cows, he or she would almost undoubtedly answer infertility, lameness, and mastitis. Infertility is not necessarily a welfare concern to the cow, because it doesn't really necessarily affect her welfare. But it's usually brought on by, indirectly or directly, related to other welfare problems such as lameness and mastitis, along with a host of other problems. If we were to ask the same question to farmers in North America or in the rest of Europe, you'd find that they would answer very similarly. If we were to ask that question to farmers in Asia or in Africa, they might answer slightly differently, mainly because lameness is not such an issue in the these countries. We're gonna now look at some cows that have mastitis here in the parlor and also carry out some mobility scoring to see if we can score lameness. Mastitis is the biggest infectious disease problem for dairy cattle. It's an infection of the udder, and causes inflammation, pain and can, in extreme cases, lead to death. Dairy cattle usually catch mastitis from lying in dirty conditions or from poorly cleaned milking equipment. Cows can be treated using antibiotics. During treatment, the milk is withdrawn from the human food chain and is either thrown away, as it is here, or given to calves. Cows such as this one are marked with tape so that all the stock people know that the milk is not to go into the main tank. There are big penalties against farmers who allow treated milk into the bulk tank so withdrawal periods are strictly adhered to. Mastitis is a painful condition for the cow but it is, on the whole, treated properly and thoroughly by farmers. Lameness is the other big health issue that cows face in dairy farms. Lameness is where a cow does not walk evenly on all four feet and in severe cases, cows can barely walk at all. Lameness is due to the cow feeling pain in her feet or her legs. This pain can come from an infectious condition, a non-infectious bruising or hemorrhaging in the hoof, or some other injury to the foot or the leg. Lameness is not caused by one disease or environmental conditions but is multifactorial. Lameness is more common in the first few weeks after calving and can be related to cows standing in wet conditions or slurry. Or can be related to poor levels of comfort in the bedded areas. Lameness can be reduced by keeping cows' feet clean and dry, increasing cow comfort in the bedding area, and using footbaths such as this one. Foot trimming can also help to alleviate non-infectious lameness and should be done regularly. We know from research that each case of lameness costs a considerable amount of money, around about 200 pounds in UK terms. And this is lost through lowered milk yield and lowered fertility. This knowledge should help farmers to treat this condition more frequently. Cows can be assessed for many things when they're in the parlor. They have easy access to the cow's legs. And we can see all the way down to the hoof, as well as to the udder. You can see here that this cow has an abrasion and a swelling on its hock from long-term housing. We can also see that the hoof shape is around about the right angle there. We can measure other things in the parlor as well, and I'll show you some mobility scoring later on. And that's what we do when we're measuring for lameness when cows leave the parlor. But otherwise, I think this girl is finished milking, so we'll let her leave. Okay, so this is a good place to do mobility scoring, where we look for lameness and how well a cow puts its weight onto each foot. I'm just gonna let the cows out now and then I'll carry out a mobility score. And this way, any cows that are lame can be separated from the herd and treated. Many retailers and farm assurance schemes are putting in mobility scoring as a requirement these days, which should help in treating this often untreated or poorly treated condition. This cow is having trouble putting weight evenly on all four, and she can go through and be shed from the main herd.
