How drinking behaviour in automatic milk feeders can be used as early disease detection
Healthy calves are the foundation in order to run a profitable diary production. Being healthy as calf results in a better start in life and good growth is expected to follow. Within dairy production it becomes more common to rear calves in groups and feed them by an automatic milk feeder. The milk...
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| Formato: | H3 |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés sueco |
| Publicado: |
SLU/Dept. of Animal Nutrition and Management (until 231231)
2013
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| Materias: |
| _version_ | 1855570878488641536 |
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| author | Eriksson, Caroline |
| author_browse | Eriksson, Caroline |
| author_facet | Eriksson, Caroline |
| author_sort | Eriksson, Caroline |
| collection | Epsilon Archive for Student Projects |
| description | Healthy calves are the foundation in order to run a profitable diary production. Being healthy as calf results in a better start in life and good growth is expected to follow. Within dairy production it becomes more common to rear calves in groups and feed them by an automatic milk feeder. The milk feeder enables for the calves in greater extent to ingest milk or milk replacer several times per day and they are also able to perform natural behaviors in greater extent. Group rearing of calves puts higher demands on the animal keepers to localize individual calves in the group pen, showing signs of illness. In group pens it can be harder to detect which of the calves’ suffering from disease compared to rearing calves in single pens. The aim with this master thesis is to detect calves with diarrhoea and compare their feeding behaviour in the automatic milk feeder with healthy calves. This also simplifies detection of upcoming illness at far level and simplifies the rearing of calves.
During the first 28 days in life faeces from 53 calves of Swedish Holstein (SH) and Swedish Red Breed (SRB) was examined. The faeces were scored at a four-graded scale (0-3) according to consistency and appearance. Grade 0 was considered as normal faeces (healthy calf) and scoring 1-3 included different grades of diarrhoea (diseased calf). The calves were weighed at the age of 1, 2, 4 and 8 weeks. In average the calves were moved from a single pen to a group pen, equipped with an automatic milk feeder, at the age of one week. When introduced in the group pen the calves had access to 8 liters of milk replacer, and after one week in the group box they had access to 10 liters of milk replacer.
From DeLaval's ALPRO system relevant data for the calves' consumption of milk replacer was obtained. Nearly all calves in the study were affected by different levels of diarrhoea. They were recorded with faeces score between 1 and 3 in average 3 of 4 test days. Because of the frequent occurrence of diarrhoea among the calves it was not possible in a greater extent to use data concerning milk consumption patterns to predict illness and health. Despite the high prevalence of diarrhoea, the growth of the calves was not affected. |
| format | H3 |
| id | RepoSLU5641 |
| institution | Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences |
| language | Inglés swe |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publishDateSort | 2013 |
| publisher | SLU/Dept. of Animal Nutrition and Management (until 231231) |
| publisherStr | SLU/Dept. of Animal Nutrition and Management (until 231231) |
| record_format | eprints |
| spelling | RepoSLU56412013-06-12T09:42:24Z How drinking behaviour in automatic milk feeders can be used as early disease detection Eriksson, Caroline Calf Automatic milk feeder Health Diarrhoea Eating behaviour Healthy calves are the foundation in order to run a profitable diary production. Being healthy as calf results in a better start in life and good growth is expected to follow. Within dairy production it becomes more common to rear calves in groups and feed them by an automatic milk feeder. The milk feeder enables for the calves in greater extent to ingest milk or milk replacer several times per day and they are also able to perform natural behaviors in greater extent. Group rearing of calves puts higher demands on the animal keepers to localize individual calves in the group pen, showing signs of illness. In group pens it can be harder to detect which of the calves’ suffering from disease compared to rearing calves in single pens. The aim with this master thesis is to detect calves with diarrhoea and compare their feeding behaviour in the automatic milk feeder with healthy calves. This also simplifies detection of upcoming illness at far level and simplifies the rearing of calves. During the first 28 days in life faeces from 53 calves of Swedish Holstein (SH) and Swedish Red Breed (SRB) was examined. The faeces were scored at a four-graded scale (0-3) according to consistency and appearance. Grade 0 was considered as normal faeces (healthy calf) and scoring 1-3 included different grades of diarrhoea (diseased calf). The calves were weighed at the age of 1, 2, 4 and 8 weeks. In average the calves were moved from a single pen to a group pen, equipped with an automatic milk feeder, at the age of one week. When introduced in the group pen the calves had access to 8 liters of milk replacer, and after one week in the group box they had access to 10 liters of milk replacer. From DeLaval's ALPRO system relevant data for the calves' consumption of milk replacer was obtained. Nearly all calves in the study were affected by different levels of diarrhoea. They were recorded with faeces score between 1 and 3 in average 3 of 4 test days. Because of the frequent occurrence of diarrhoea among the calves it was not possible in a greater extent to use data concerning milk consumption patterns to predict illness and health. Despite the high prevalence of diarrhoea, the growth of the calves was not affected. Friska kalvar är grunden för att bedriva lönsam mjölkproduktion. Under uppfödningstiden läggs grunden till hur kon kommer att kunna producera under sin livstid som mjölkande ko. Att vara frisk som kalv ger en bättre start i livet, med god tillväxt som följd. Inom dagens mjölkproduktion är det alltmer vanligt att föda upp kalvarna i grupp där de utfodras genom en kalvamma. Kalvamman möjliggör för kalvarna att i större utsträckning kunna inta mjölk eller mjölkersättning under flertalet gånger per dygn, samt att de kan utföra ett mer naturligt dibeteende i amman. Uppfödning av kalvar i grupp ställer högre krav på djurskötarna att se de individer som visar tecken på sjukdom. I gruppboxar kan det vara svårare att se vilken individ som är sjuk jämfört med kalvar som hålls i ensamboxar. Syftet med denna studie var därför att detektera kalvar med diarré och jämföra dem med deras drickbeteende i kalvamman och deras hälsostatus. Att enklare kunna finna vilken eller vilka kalvar i gruppen som är på väg att insjukna i diarré möjliggör förbättringar inom kalvuppfödningen. Under de första 28 dagarna i livet undersöktes träcken från 53 kalvar av raserna Svensk Holstein (SH) och Svensk Röd Boskap (SRB). Träcken graderades enligt en fyra-gradig skala (0-3) med avseende på träckens konsistens och utseende. Gradering 0 ansågs som normal träck (frisk) och 1-3 inkluderade diarré i olika grad (sjuk). Kalvarna vägdes under levnadsvecka 1,2,4 och 8. Vid cirka sju dagars ålder förflyttades kalvarna till en gruppbox med tillgång till en drickstation kopplad till en kalvamma. Vid inflyttning var kalvarnas grundgiva åtta liter mjölkersättning och efter en vecka i kalvamman hade kalvarna tillgång till totalt tio liter mjölkersättning per dag. Från DeLaval’s ALPRO-system kunde relevant data för kalvarnas konsumtion erhållas. Kalvarna var under större delen av studien påverkade av olika grad av diarré, där de 3 av 4 testdagar registrerades med träckpoäng mellan 1 och 3. På grund av den frekventa förekomsten av diarréer bland kalvarna var det inte möjligt i större utsträckning att titta på förutsägelser av sjukdom och jämföra drickbeteendet med hälsan. Trots förekomst av diarréer, påverkades inte tillväxten på kalvarna. SLU/Dept. of Animal Nutrition and Management (until 231231) 2013 H3 eng swe https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/5641/ |
| spellingShingle | Calf Automatic milk feeder Health Diarrhoea Eating behaviour Eriksson, Caroline How drinking behaviour in automatic milk feeders can be used as early disease detection |
| title | How drinking behaviour in automatic milk feeders can be used as early disease detection |
| title_full | How drinking behaviour in automatic milk feeders can be used as early disease detection |
| title_fullStr | How drinking behaviour in automatic milk feeders can be used as early disease detection |
| title_full_unstemmed | How drinking behaviour in automatic milk feeders can be used as early disease detection |
| title_short | How drinking behaviour in automatic milk feeders can be used as early disease detection |
| title_sort | how drinking behaviour in automatic milk feeders can be used as early disease detection |
| topic | Calf Automatic milk feeder Health Diarrhoea Eating behaviour |