Pasture access and eye temperature in dairy cows
JOURNAL OF APPLIED ANIMAL WELFARE SCIENCE(2024)
摘要
Pasture access can benefit dairy cows' behavior, health, and welfare, but herds are increasingly housed indoors full-time. Recent infrared thermal-imaging (thermography) studies suggest that higher eye temperatures may be a physiological indicator of chronic stress. We, therefore, hypothesized that, compared to cows with pasture access, cows housed indoors full-time would have higher eye temperatures. In a two-phase crossover experiment, 29 Holstein-Friesian dairy cows experienced 18 days of overnight pasture access and 18 days of full-time indoor housing. We measured each animal's eye temperature 16 times (eight/phase). During Phase One, cows with pasture access had higher eye temperatures than cows housed indoors full-time (contrary to our hypothesis). However, during Phase Two, cows with pasture access had lower eye temperatures than cows housed indoors full-time. It is, therefore, unclear whether eye temperature reflected disparities in dairy cow welfare between different housing treatments.
更多查看译文
关键词
Animal welfare,continuous housing,thermography,zero-grazing
AI 理解论文
溯源树
样例
生成溯源树,研究论文发展脉络
Chat Paper
正在生成论文摘要