dairy cows, floor, ethology, cleanliness of dairy cows
Abstract
The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of floor quality on the behaviour and cleanliness of the diary cow‘s body. The analysis results show that cows housed in the section with the separated manure solids spent more time lying (41.47%) and also laid less in the corridor manure (0.91%) than the cows in the section with separated manure solids and the rubber mats where they were laying generally less (35.71%), they spent more time lying in the corridor manure (1.55%) and in terms of preference of lying area the cows clearly preferred the separated manure solids (25.8%). Based on observations we can say that cows housed in sections of slurry solid phase were cleaner (average 6.13 points) than cows in the section with the rubber and a separated manure (averagely 7.28 points). Nowadays the free housing systems with different types of litter and boxes are frequently used, while the proper littering influences the lying preferences of an animal. In practice, for the dairy cows the deepened lying boxes littered with natural materials such as sawdust, shavings, straw, dried manure and sand boxes or elevated boxes covered with a synthetic material, mattresses or mats are used.
