Ah. Herlin et al., FECAL CONTAMINATION OF THE LYING AREA FOR DAIRY-COWS IN DIFFERENT HOUSING SYSTEMS, Swedish Journal of Agricultural Research, 24(4), 1994, pp. 171-176
3The hygienic function of a housing system for dairy cows is an import
ant factor for cleanliness and animal welfare. Extensive dirtiness may
cause health problems, reduced milk quality and increased work load.
In this study, 60 tie-stalls, 56 cubicles and 16 feeding cubicles in t
he same herd were compared as to hygienic function, i.e. how often can
different types of lying areas for dairy cows be expected to be conta
minated by faeces? On five days, before morning and afternoon stable w
ork, stalls, cubicles and feeding cubicles were observed and those con
taminated with faeces were recorded. The feeding cubicles were found t
o be the least contaminated lying area followed by cubicles and tie-st
alls. Primiparous cows in tie-stalls contaminated their lying area sev
erely while cubicles of primiparous cows were very seldom contaminated
. Multiparous cows in cubicles contaminated the lying area while lying
, which gave nearly the same contamination level in the morning observ
ation as those in tie-stalls. The high cleanliness of the feeding cubi
cles was attributed to the concentrates being distributed from an auto
matic dispenser in the alley, motivating the cows to leave the feeding
-cubicle for concentrate feeding together with other reasons to leave
the feeding-cubicle either voluntarily or involuntarily and thus, defe
cation occurred more often in the alley.