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By: Alison Hanlon
Department of Animal Husbandry and Production
E-mail: Alison.Hanlon@ucd.ie

Farm animal welfare is an increasingly important consideration for consumers, farmers, the veterinary profession and government, as a criterion for ensuring acceptable standards and conditions of food production. As well as it’s ethical importance, good welfare has been repeatedly demonstrated to have a beneficial effect on different aspects of animal production. Although the knowledge base on animal welfare standards is developing, it is still difficult to objectively measure key physiological parameters that indicate the welfare status of farm animals; this can only be progressed by the conduct of fundamental and applied science.

Improvements in genetics of the Irish dairy cow population has dramatically increased their milk yield over the last decade. However, increases in milk production have, to an extent, been at the expense of the health and well-being of cows, corresponding with an increase in production and metabolic diseases, decreases in fertility and culminating in the culling of cows at a younger age. The cause of some of these detrimental effects are attributed to a syndrome referred to as metabolic stress, which is considered to be prevalent in modern, high-yielding dairy cows.

Metabolic stress is a recent concept, it generally refers to an imbalance in nutrient intake and demand, where cows have been genetically bred to maximise the conversion of nutrients to milk, decreasing the availability of nutrients for other biological functions such as maintenance of body weight, reproductive efficiency and health. To date, there has been little research, and it has mainly focused on the epidemiological factors which characterise metabolic stress such as the relationship between diet, body condition, milk production and the incidence of production diseases. There have been no studies to identify the physiological mechanisms regulating the development of metabolic stress or their impact on the health and well-being of cows, which are fundamental to addressing this serious problem.

Objectives:

To identify biological markers for metabolic stress in modern dairy cows in order to adapt production methods to overcome metabolic stress. This information could be used in the future development of genotypes and breeding criteria, nutrition and management procedures to optimise the health and well-being of modern, high-yielding dairy cows.

Research Team:

Alison J. Hanlon M.Sc. Ph.D, UCD

Annmarie Dillon B. Agr. Sc., UCD

Diarmuid O’Callaghan B. Agr.Sc., M.An.Sci., PhD., UCD

John Mee MVB, PhD, Teagasc Moorepark

This research is generously sponsored by Irish Life

The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC; UK) recently published a report on welfare of dairy cattle. The report highlighted potential welfare problems which may arise from different procedures and management practices. One of the procedures which was highlighted was ovum pick-up. Ovum pick-up is a procedure used to collect eggs by passing a probe in through the vagina of the cow, and inserting a needle through the wall of the ovary to aspirate the eggs. To help the cow relax and to alleviate discomfort during this procedure cows are given an epidural into the tail vertebrae.

FAWC suggested that ovum pick-up may cause significant pain to cows, especially in young cows (heifers) and if it is conducted frequently. They recommended that frequency of OPU should be limited until research had been conducted in this area and that it should not be conducted on heifers.

Objectives:

To investigate whether OPU caused pain in dairy cows and to determine whether repeated OPU caused chronic pain, which would be considered to be more debilitating than a single episode of acute pain.

Research Team:

Alison J. Hanlon M.Sc. Ph.D

J. M. Lozano Ph.D

David Nation Ph.D

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