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Social Behaviour and Injuries of Horned Cows in Loose Housing Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2023

C Menke ,
S Waiblinger ,
D W Fölsch  and
P R Wiepkema
C Menke*
Affiliation:
Department of Farm Animal Behaviour and Management, University of Kassel, D-37217 Witzenhausen, Germany
S Waiblinger
Affiliation:
Institute of Animal Husbandry and Animal Welfare, Veterinarian University Vienna, A-1040 Vienna, Austria
D W Fölsch
Affiliation:
Department of Farm Animal Behaviour and Management, University of Kassel, D-37217 Witzenhausen, Germany
P R Wiepkema
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Husbandry, Agricultural University, NL-6700 AH Wageningen, The Netherlands
*
† Contact for correspondence and requests for reprints
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Abstract

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The relationship between social behaviour and skin injuries (caused by horns) of loose housed horned cows was investigated on 35 dairy farms. While the frequencies of two agonistic behaviour elements (push and chase away) were positively correlated with the occurrence of skin injuries, the frequencies of butting and horning were not. Butting appears to have an ambivalent motivation, in that its occurrence is correlated positively both with agonistic behaviour and with social licking. Horning showed a positive correlation with social licking only. Four groups of husbandry conditions that may be associated with the occurrence of social behaviour and of injuries were distinguished: i) herd management, with variables including problem solving management by the farmer, integration of new cows, and dealing with periparturient and oestrus cows; ii) human-animal relationship, with variables including ability to identify individual cows, frequency of brushing the cows, number of milkers, and frequency of personnel changes; iii) animal characteristics, with the variable of herd size; and iv) stable characteristics, with the variable of space per cow (m2). The relevance of the husbandry variables investigated here had been confirmed in a previous stepwise regression analysis (Menke 1996). The variables for herd management and human-animal relationship conditions correlated in a consistent way with the occurrence of agonistic behaviour and/or of injuries, while most of them also correlated in the opposite direction with the occurrence of social licking. Herd size correlated positively with agonistic behaviour, but negatively with social licking. Space per cow correlated negatively with agonistic behaviour and injuries. In more than 70 per cent of the herds investigated, the levels of agonistic behaviour and of skin injuries were low, implying that horned dairy cows can be kept with less risk than is often assumed. We argue that such risks strongly depend on management factors that can be improved.

Keywords

animal welfarehorned dairy cowshuman-animal relationshipinjuriesloose housingmanagementsocial behaviour
Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , August 1999 , pp. 243 - 258
Copyright
© 1999 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

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