RICERCA ITALIANA     

INNOVATIVE TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING THE PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY AND THE ANIMAL WELFARE IN DAIRY COW HOUSING

Università degli Studi di Bologna

Abstract

The research will investigate two subjects relevant for the efficiency of the dairy cows breeding: innovative solutions for improving the sanitary and welfare conditions in the cow housing and systems for heat protection by means of cooling plants and design models for predicting the building internal micro-climatic condition in different housing solutions. For the first subject the floorings both of the circulation alleys and of the cubicle resting area will be firstly taken into consideration. To this purpose preliminary surveys on existing barns will be done and then experimental trials of innovative materials alternative to the traditional concrete and littered floors will be carried on. In particular, for the walking alleys, rubber coverings and new mixture of softened concrete; for the cubicles, new synthetic multi-layer mats will be tested, compared to sand and straw litters. The tests will concern both the physical characteristics (friction coefficient, static and dynamic to be measure with an instrument specially created) and the effects on the animals under the behavioural, sanitary and productive profiles. For this research new instrumentations will be used for the measurement of the rest-activity rhythm and for the measurement of the floors friction coefficients. The results will be transfer5red in a guideline report to orientate the choice of the more proper floorings in the different housing conditions.
On the other side various possible organizations of >>>

Principal Investigator

Paolo Zappavigna Università degli Studi di BOLOGNA

Research Objectives

The general object of the project is to implement and evaluate a number of possible solutions for the design and management of dairy cow barns and to identify the most appropriate application conditions in the Italian farms, in order to improve production efficiency and animal welfare.
This objective will be pursued by working on aspects having greatest importance in modern farms in our country, on the productive results and animal welfare: the comfort of flooring, the relief from heat stress and the rational organization of functional areas in the barn, taking into account the possible different conditions related to the introduction of new operating techniques such as robotic milking and the fractionation of feed delivery.
The main expected achievements are: a) information on actual performances, in Italian farming conditions, of flooring materials alternative to the traditional ones, with improved performances in terms of welfare and management efficiency, in order to assess their convenience and make effective their use in the various farming conditions; b) useful directions for the design and management of artificial cooling systems of animals, in order to increase their effectiveness for the reduction of heat stress in different Italian climatic situations; c) building design criteria and tools that will optimize thermal performance of barns in the summertime in order to reduce the impact of high temperatures on animals; d) criteria and tools for the >>>

First Results

The results of the research will introduce innovative solutions on various aspects concerning:
a) New solutions for housing design more favourable to animal production and welfare. This will be obtained by determining the performance of new and more comfortable materials for walking and resting areas based mainly on synthetic coverings. The effects on the animals will be verified and indications about the use in various farming conditions will be given;
b) The optimisation of the plants for cooling animals to reduce the heat stress in summer condition, taking into consideration the different Italian climatic situations;
c) the creation of a software to simulate the thermal performance of the buildings in summer conditions and estimate the effects on the animal production;
d) The dimensioning and disposal of the functional spaces for cows permitting a full exercise of their vital functions, allowing an easy access to the different functional areas and favouring an increase of the resting time and a feed intake adequate to the productive level.
e) The implementation of the cow traffic in housing with automated milking systems by testing a new pattern where the access to the robots comes from the feeding alley instead of the resting area;
f) The evaluation of the influence on the space use and on animal behaviour when changing the way (times and amounts) of fodder supply;
g) The realization of a new portable instrument for >>>

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

In dairy cow housing the aspects related to buildings and plants are becoming more and more relevant in the productive results. This is due to the recent evolution, both in the field of the animal breeding and housing, characterized by: a) a continuous increase of the herd size, requiring a more careful attention on the design and management aspects in order to compensate the deficit of individual care caused by the intense work activity and the low qualification of the workers; b) a strong push towards the genetic selection, producing animals more and more sensitive to the housing conditions (physical, spatial, environmental) making inadequate, if not adverse, to the animal welfare and health the traditional building and plant solutions; c) a deeper functional specialization of the various breeding procedures and a more and more wide and complex mechanization, having attained the milking automation and near to the total housing automation.
In the same time the demand from the society concerning the quality of the products and the animal welfare is increasing, characters that directly depend on the plant and building options and impose a continuous conforming.
On the other side, the search of a higher productive efficiency, cause of the market pressure, requires an optimal condition of the spatial layout and the technical equipment, being more and more the barn a complex system where the integration between the building components and plants reveals determinant >>>