By Stephanie Hoff
Part 1: Start Off On The Right Footing
When animals are your livelihood, keeping them happy and comfortable is a part of the job. Today, we’re exploring the many ways dairy farmers prioritize animal welfare to keep the farm profitable and productive.
Jeff Glass joins us from Best Footing Concrete and Grooving out of Strum. His job is to ensure cows don’t slip on wet concrete or hurt their feet on surfaces that are too rough. He says barn floors encounter a lot of wear and tear, water, and manure, so slipping is common if there’s no traction. Concrete grooving provides traction for cattle to reduce stress.
“If a cow’s not comfortable, they’re not going to eat as much, they’re not going to go to the bunk, they have to walk quite a ways to the parlor to get milked, so you want them comfortable,” he says. “It’s like us walking on ice, you walk real tentatively, and a lot of cattle avoid areas that are really slippery because they’ve fallen there before, so they’ll walk around areas. There’s a lot of improvement in cow comfort if they can walk and are stable on the floor.”
Glass notes that if a cow is comfortable and acting normal, you’ll be more likely to notice if it’s in heat because it’ll be jumping on other cows.
Learn more: https://www.bestfootingconcretegrooving.com/
Part 2: Schedule A ‘Pedicure’
Austin Brozak owns Quadra Step Hoof Care near Madison, providing foot baths and hoof trimming for dairies. He says hoof care for a cow is kind of like scheduling a pedicure for health and wellness.
“Almost all dairy cattle will walk through a foot bath at least one time a week, up to typically five times a week, and that is to prevent digital dermatitis, which is a skin infection that happens on the heel,” Brozak says. “By footbathing, we are trying to keep their feet clean and also kill that bacteria so we can manage lameness.”
Learn more: https://quadrastephoofcare.com/
Part 3: Waterbeds For Cows!
Nick Knaapen is a sales manager for Bioret Agri. He says on many farms, the cows sleep more comfortably than their farmers do thanks to animal welfare technology. Nick essentially sells waterbeds for dairy cattle.
“I liken it back to… the 70s and 80s, where everybody liked to sleep on them. We’re trying to mimic that comfort for our cows and give them a nice, reliable, comfortable space to lie down in. When that cow is lying down, we have a single chamber that they sit on, and that allows that cow to float,” he says. “The other aspect… it provides a cool bed. In the hot days of summer, that water will take heat away from the cows.”
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