Associations between lameness and production, feeding and milking attendance of Holstein cows milked with an automatic milking system

A longitudinal study involving 73 primiparous (PP) and 47 multiparous (MP) Holstein cows was conducted over an 8-month period to assess the associations between locomotion score (LCS) and milk production, dry matter intake (DMI), feeding behaviour, and number of visits to an automatic milking system (AMS). Twice weekly, all cows were locomotion scored (scale 1-5) by the same observer. Individual eating behaviour and individual feed consumption at each cow visit to the feed troughs, individual milk production, the time of milking, and the number of milkings for each cow were recorded for the day of locomotion scoring and the day before and after. Dependent variables, such as milk yield, DMI, etc. were modelled using a mixed-effects model with parity, LCS, days in milk (DIM), the exponential of -0.05 DIM, and the interaction between parity and LCS, as fixed effects and random intercepts and random slopes for the linear and the exponential of -0.05DIM effects within cow. LCS did not affect time of attendance at feed troughs, but affected the location that cows occupied in the feed troughs. The time devoted to eating and DMI decreased with increasing LCS. Milk production decreased with LCS > 3. The number of daily visits to the AMS also decreased with increasing LCS. The cows with high LCS were fetched more often than the cows with low LCS. Overall, PP cows were more sensitive to the effects of increasing LCS than were MP cows. The decrease in milk production observed with increasing LCS seemed to be affected similarly by the decrease in DMI and by the decrease in number of daily visits to the AMS. A further economic loss generated by lame cows with AMS will be associated with the additional labour needed to fetch them.