What is cow comfort worth?

Cow comfort is identified as one of the biggest obstacles to production and health on many dairy farms. Poor cow comfort can cause a great deal to go wrong. Increased lameness, culling and death loss, as well as poor production and reproduction, can sometimes be attributed to inadequate cow comfort.

In an editorial in the Dairy Herd Management magazine, Fred Gingrich, a practising veterinarian and owner of Country Roads Veterinary Services, Inc., in Ashland, Ohio said barns with poor cow comfort often appear to be in a state of chaos.

“We see cows just walking around, standing in stalls, shifting weight from limb to limb and lying down for small periods of time. Often, we see cows standing in front of stalls wondering if they should lie in them”, Fred wrote.

He added that in barns with comfortable stalls, there is order. Cows are either eating/drinking or lying in stalls. Cows lie in stalls for long periods of time and do not get up and down frequently. Cows lie down quickly when they enter the stalls and appear to fit in them well. Click HERE to read more.