The effect of heat stress on the behaviour of dairy cows at the drinker
department or school: Land and Food Systems, Faculty of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: McDonald, Paige Victoria
issued: 2019-12-03T22:51:23Z
issued: 2019
related degree: Master of Science - MSc
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Heat-stressed dairy cows on pasture will compete for resources that aid cooling, but it is not known how heat stress affects the competition for water by indoor housed cows, or if competition for water can be recorded automatically with an electronic drinking system. The objectives of my thesis were to 1) validate an electronic drinking system to detect social competition between dairy cows at the drinker by identifying the interval between one cow leaving the drinker and another cow taking her place, and 2) evaluate how heat stress affects the behaviour of indoor-housed cows at the drinker, both at group and cow level. For the first objective, 20 cows were monitored for 4-d by video recording and an electronic drinking system. Replacements (defined as when physical contact initiated by one cow causes the other to remove her head from the drinker with the initiator subsequently placing her head in the same drinker), identified by video, were paired with the interval between drinking events of the 2 cows at the electronic drinker, to identify the interval that best predicted replacements. The optimal interval to identify replacements at the drinker was ≤ 29 s. For the second objective, 69 cows were observed over 59 d. The electronic drinking system recorded time spent at the drinker, frequency of visits, water intake, and competitive replacements. The number of replacements a cow was involved in was used to determine her level of competitive success at the drinker (low, medium, high). The temperature-humidity index (THI) was recorded by the local weather station. With increasing THI, cows drank more water, spent more time at the drinker, made more visits, and engaged in more replacements at the drinker. We also found that cows with low competitive success at the drinker shifted their drinking behaviour to avoid the drinker at the hottest and most competitive time of day. These results indicate that competition between dairy cows at the drinker can be accurately measu…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/72534
note: THE EFFECT OF HEAT STRESS ON THE BEHAVIOUR OF DAIRY COWS AT THE DRINKER by Paige Victoria McDonald B.Sc., The University of British Columbia, 2013 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Applied Animal Biology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2019 © Paige Victoria McDonald, 2019 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: The effect of heat stress on the behaviour of dairy cows at the drinker submitted by Paige Victoria McDonald in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Applied Animal Biology Examining Committee: Dr. Daniel Weary Supervisor Dr. Marina A.G. von Keyserlingk Supervisory Committee Member Dr. James Vercammen Additional Examiner Additional Supervisory Committee Members: Dr. Sumeet Gulati Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract Heat-stressed dairy cows on pasture will compete for resources that aid cooling, but it is not known how heat stress affects the competition for water by indoor housed cows, or if competition for water can be recorded automatically with an electronic drinking system. The objectives of my thesis were to 1) validate an electronic drinking system to detect social competition between dairy cows at the drinker by identifying the interval between one cow leaving the drinker and another cow taking her place, and 2) evaluate how heat stress affects the behaviour of indoor-housed cows at the drinker, both at group and cow level. For the first objective, 20 cows were monitored for 4-d by video recording and an electronic drinking system. Replacements (defined as when physical contact initiated by one cow causes the other to remove her head from the drinker with the initiator subsequently placing her head in the same drinker), identified by video, were paire…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2020-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0386722
language: eng
degree discipline: Applied Animal Biology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/72534