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Claire Wegner

Claire Wegner
PhD student at the Department of Applied Animal Science and Welfare. Currently studying welfare, behaviour and productivity in dairy management systems where cows and calves are kept together.

Presentation

Born and raised on the Canadian west coast, I developed a strong passion for animal welfare and behaviour during the latter half of my undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia. During this time, I completed my first research project - a bachelor thesis that explored the effects of an outdoor, deep-bedded pack on gait score in dairy cattle. This eventually led to my pursuit of a Master's degree at SLU, where I had the opportunity to work within the ongoing project 'Cow and calf together'. More specifically, I investigated lying behaviour of cows that were housed in a freestall system with automatic milking, either with or without access to their calves.

My current work as a PhD student aims to furthur explore various aspects related to the management of cow-calf contact (CCC) systems, within the context of voluntary milking systems. This will include analysis of sensor and equipment data collected since the beginning of the project to evaluate behavioural and production parameters (i.e., milk yield, cross-suckling). Additionally, longer-term effects of CCC will be investigated, as all calves raised with access to their dams are followed through to the end of their first lactation.

To learn more about the project 'Cow and calf together', click here.

Background

M.Sc. in Animal Science from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences - Graduated 2021

B.Sc. in Applied Animal Biology (Honours) from the University of British Columbia - Graduated 2019

Selected publications

Wegner, C.S., and Ternman, E. 2023. Lying behaviour of lactating dairy cows in a cow-calf contact freestall system. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 259: 105851. Link


Contact

Doctoral Student at the Department of Applied Animal Science and Welfare; Management, Ruminants
Telephone: +46730293885
Postal address:
Box 7024
750 07 UPPSALA
Visiting address: Ulls väg 26, Uppsala