Crowding Your Cows Too Much Costs You Cash

摘要

This paper addresses some economic aspects of stocking density of dairy cows housed in pens with freestalls. Stocking density is a quantitative measure of the area occupied by cows. It may be measured by the number of cows per stall in a pen, the surface area available per cow, or the bunk space per cow. In this paper, stocking density is measured as number of cows / number of stalls, unless noted otherwise.Stocking density may affect the behavior of the cow. Cows are categorized as allelomimetic, meaning that they all want to do the same thing at the sametime (referenced in Nordlund et al., 2006). When stocking density is (too) high, the behavioral needs of the cow may not be met, for example, the need to he down or the need to eat when returning from the milking parlor. This can negatively affect her health and performance, such as milk production and reproduction.