Are cows more likely to lie down

the longer they stand?

Arek Bee

arekbee [at] gmail.com

Are cows more likely to lie down the

longer they stand?• B. J. Tolkamp, M. J. Haskell, C. A. Morgan, S. P.

Turner, D. J. Roberts• Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburg, UK• The Proceedings of the British Society of Animal

Science constitute summaries of papers presented at the Society’s Annual Conference in Belfast, UK

• 12 – 14 April 2010• Applied Animal Behaviour Science, vol. 124, nos.

1-2, 2010, pp. 1–10

Ig® Nobel Prize

• PROBABILITY PRIZE 2013

▫ Bert Tolkamp [UK, the NETHERLANDS]

▫ Marie Haskell [UK]

▫ Fritha Langford [UK, CANADA]

▫ David Roberts [UK]

▫ Colin Morgan [UK]

Motivation

• Early diagnosis of health issues

• To find welfare consequences of changes in housing and management

Stress

• The more rest thay have

the less stressed they are

• Symptoms of stress

▫ aversion to lying down

▫ breathing and heart rate acceleration

▫ reduction in the quantity of milk and its protein content and fat

Measurement

• 10 indoor-housed beef cows

• 16 days of measure

• 10,814 lying ‘episodes’

• Video recording

IceTag sensors

Checking every minute

Clearing episodes

• Lying more than 4 min

▫ Lying behaviour

• Lying less than 4 min

▫ Interruption

▫ 88% of episodes

▫ 3% of total lying time

Discovery nr 1

The longer a cow has been lying down,

the more likely that cow will soon stand up

Discovery nr 2

Once a cow stands up,

you cannot easily predict how soon that cow will lie down again

Bibliography

• Bert J. Tolkamp, , Marie J. Haskell, Fritha M. Langford, David J. Roberts, Colin A. Morgan, „Are cows more likely to lie down the longer they stand?”, Advances in Animal Biosciences, April 2010

• Strzałkowska N., Markiewicz-Kęszycka M., Krzyżewski J., Bagnicka E., Lipińska P., Jóźwik A. "Influence of stress on the yield and quality of milk as well as on reproductive rates of high-yielding dairy cows", Med. Weter., 2014

People are like cows

Thank youArek Bee