Dairy cows with a curious personality produce more milk and more milk solids, and spend more time grazing and lying down, according to a New Zealand study that used wearable sensors to link cow personality with behaviour and yield.
Heather Neave, professor of animal science at Purdue University in the United States, worked with New Zealand researchers at EthicoNZ, AgResearch and DairyNZ. The team fitted ear and leg sensors to 30 to 40 cows on each of 27 commercial dairy farms and monitored grazing, ruminating and lying for two to three weeks. On each farm, 10 cows also wore GPS collars recording how far they walked at milking and how long they spent off the paddock.
In all, 788 cows were scored for personality using three standard tests: their response to a new object on the way back from milking (curiosity), how close they let a person approach in the paddock (tolerance of humans), and how they reacted when the milking cluster was attached. The researchers also recorded body condition, lameness, age, breed, days in milk, farm layout, herd size, weather and management.
Curious cows gave 0.67 litres a day more milk, 0.05 kg a day more milk solids and 0.02 kg a day more protein, grazed 0.26 hours a day longer and lay down 0.1 hours a day longer. Cows tolerant of people tended to give 0.47 litres a day more milk and to ruminate longer, while reaction at milking was not linked to behaviour or yield.
The collars showed that lying time fell when cows spent longer off the paddock, for example standing in the collecting yard. Where farmers cut walking distances, grazing time tended to rise; farms with at least one water trough in every paddock had higher milk yields, and more varied feed was linked to longer ruminating and lying.
"There is potential for wearable technologies to guide tailored management practices that meet the needs of individual cows of different personalities," Neave said at the 4th International Precision Dairy Conference in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Photo: Halter / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Farmers Weekly
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