Check Your Cows’ COMFORT!

Check Your Cows’ COMFORT!

Over the past ten years or so a great deal of attention has been paid to cow comfort. We now know that cows that are comfortable and stress free in their housing will make

you more high quality milk and suffer from fewer stress related diseases or illness.

Use the following checklist to evaluate your own facilities or, better yet, evaluate a friend or

neighbors and get them to do yours!

Feed Bunks and Waterers

Monitor your cows at the feed bunk. They should not have to get down on their knees to eat.

Make sure their necks are not hitting or rubbing the top of the manger.

Check the bunk surface, it should be smooth to the touch (tile or epoxy).

Feed Bunks and Waterers

Feed Bunks and Waterers

Examine bunk and waterer space. If cows have to fight for access to feed and water, boss cows will eat first.

Make sure cows have free access to clean water after milking.

Don’t let a boss cow stake out the waterer as part of her territory. She may be limiting the other cows water in take.

Free StallsCheck to see if cows are lying in the stalls

backward, lying in the scrape and cross alleys, or standing half in half out of the stalls.

Check for injuries that may have been inflicted by cows banging into stalls. Check knees and hocks for scrapes and swelling, and check hips, neck and shoulders for rubbed hair.

Free Stalls

Watch where cows put their head when they rise. If they have to struggle to reach a point where they can get up or their withers hit the neck rail, they do not have enough lunge space.

Watch cows as they lie down. If the stalls are comfortable, cows will walk in, lie down and settle into bed within a few minutes time.

Midway between milking, not more than 15% should be standing in the stalls at one time.

Parlour Area

Watch the flow of your cattle. The path from the barn to the parlor should be unobstructed and wide enough that the cows do not have to walk single file or be crowded.

Monitor cows in the parlour. They should stand at ease. If they kick, do not settle, are reluctant to let down their milk, or if more than 10% of the cows defecate in the parlour, they are not comfortable.

Parlour Area

Parlour Area

Watch the interaction between the cows and the people who milk them. The milkers should be confident, calm and reassuring to the cows.

A qualified service person should perform a stray voltage check during milking as part of the routine maintenance check on milking equipment every 6 months.

Make sure cows stand relaxed in the holding pen, chewing their cuds.

Ventilation

Air should not smell stale or have strong ammonia odour.

Check cows for open-mouthed breathing, coughing, nasal discharge.

Check for cobwebs throughout the barn. Cobwebs should not be present if airflow is continuous.

Check for condensation and moisture damage such as rusty nails and stalls, and dry rot in walls and trusses.

Ventilation

Monitor barn temperature. In a naturally ventilated barn with adequate ventilation, the temperature inside should be within -15 to -13 degrees C of the outside temperature in the winter. In summer, a well-ventilated barn is often cooler inside than out.

Run your fingers through the cows’ hair coat; they should come out moisture free.

Bedding

Examine your cows for dirty udders, tails, switches and hindquarters. These are signs that the stalls are dirty or that the stalls are not being used or used properly.

Do the wet knee test. Kneel in one of the stalls and count to 10. If your pants get wet, it means the cows are exposed to a dirty, wet surface every time they lie down.

Bedding

Bedding

Simulate a cow lying down: crouch part way down and then drop to your knees in the stall. This will tell you what the cow feels like whenshe lies down.

Look at the stall surface: it should be clean and free of indentations, holes and mounds. Cows prefer to walk and rest on flat to gently slopedsurfaces.

Flooring

Watch your cows as they walk. Are they confident or timid? Do they “duck” walk with their rear feet spread? If the floors feel rough or hurt your bare feet, they’re probably causing harm to the cows by wearing down the soles of their hooves.

Flooring

Examine your breeding records. If the cows are not getting bred back within 60 days, it may be because slick floors are limiting the cowsmounting activity and making heat detection difficult.

Examine your culling records. Are cases of involuntary culling the result of injuries from falling on slippery concrete?