Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Cattle have a species specific movement pattern when lying down and getting up. They need sufficient space for their heads to perform these movements normally. The aim of this study was to investigate the lying down and getting up behaviour of beef bulls at a Swedish farm operation. The hypothesis was that bulls older than 10 months (over approximately 400 kg) were disturbed by a horizontal front rail and that the time to lie down and get up differed from what can be regarded as normal based on earlier scientific studies. The bulls were Swedish Red and White (SRB), Swedish Friesian (SLB) or crossbreeds of these two, and were kept in a cubicle system with a stall front design where there was a horizontal rail 40 cm above the stall floor. The age of the bulls ranged from 4 to 18 months. A group consisting of 33 bulls with weights 424-615 kg was chosen for the study. During one week in July 2008, behavioural observations were made daily from 7.30 to 11.30 hrs. Thirty-one of the 33 bulls were observed when lying down or getting up. The total number of observations for lying down was 175 and for getting up 157. The median total time for lying down was 27 s and for getting up 6.9 s, including interrupted sequences. According to a separate regression analysis, body weight was not significantly associated with time for lying down (P>0.05). The recorded times for lying down and getting up corresponded well with other studies. The bulls had 21% interrupted lying down and 3% interrupted getting up behaviours. During 12% of the getting up movements they were slipping, whereas this was not recorded during lying down. There were 3 recordings of abnormal lying down and 5 recordings of abnormal getting up. The head was held over the rail during 38% of the lying down movements and during 76% of the getting up movements. In conclusion this study did not show any longer times for lying down and getting up in bulls with a head rail at 40 cm above the floor, but there were some interrupted lying down behaviours and slipping at getting up and the head position during these movements may be of importance.