To start with, transition period is one of the biggest challenge for every cow each lactation. She is going through so many physiological changes and challenges. Not only that, a successful transition period is the foundation of the coming lactation. There has been great research published as well as ongoing on the subject.
The purpose of this note is to focus on facilities for calving to make calving minimally stressful. My suggestions are not going to be architectural or design based but general considering the animal needs and their impact on calving and animal health. Depending upon the design of your existing facilities, you can or cannot make any changes to present facilities.
The purpose of this note is to focus on facilities for calving to make calving minimally stressful. My suggestions are not going to be architectural or design based but general considering the animal needs and their impact on calving and animal health. Depending upon the design of your existing facilities, you can or cannot make any changes to present facilities.
- Behavior of the cows nearing calving: I have had experience of raising my cows on free housing facilities. The are not confined to cubicles or tie stalls. One thing which I noticed and found very interesting that the cows that were nearing calving, on the day, they start to isolate themselves. They look for places where they can have some privacy away from their herdmates. If there is a tree or shed in the facility, they try to be around that area or even hide close to it. So regardless of your type of facilities, you can have an adjoining area to close up group with deep straw, saw dust or sand or combination bedding. You will see cows nearing calving moving towards the designated area.
- Space: It has been seen that activity goes very high when cows are near calving. The would be lying then standing then lying etc. again and again. There is a necessity of approx 200 sq ft per cow depending upon the size and stature of the cow. So space should be designed considering these dimensions.
- Monitoring: Cows nearing calving need to be monitored regularly for instances like calving difficulty etc. But cows like to be in seclusion so area should be such where there is not much noise. I highly recommend use of cameras. I could save couple of my cows just because of cameras, one incidence where one cow pushed another in a raised feed bunk and nobody was around. the supervisor saw it and the cow could be saved. This is one of the cost effective investment fr your farm. After every calving, are should be sanitized and bedding changed.
