Precision livestock breeding – improving both health and production in dairy cattle

It’s easy to focus on purely physical factors when it comes to animal husbandry, but social interactions are also very important. We have studied how social interactions among cows affect the spread of mastitis in order to provide practical advice to dairy farmers. Another goal of the research project was to develop knowledge that will enable future breeding programs focused on milk yield, in which social interactions among cows are incorporated into the breeding model, thereby increasing production while also improving animal welfare. 

We have collected a globally unique dataset from two free-stall barns, each with approximately 200 cows. Using UWB technology, we have tracked the position of each cow once per second for three years. We also know how many calves each cow has had, how long she has been milked, and much more. By analyzing this data, we have been able to identify the traits that influence the cows’ tendency to interact with other cows. We have also discovered a “nursery effect,” in which adult cows born within seven days of one another exhibited more sustained interaction than with the rest of the herd. This knowledge is useful for farmers when deciding which cows should be housed together.

On one of the farms, we also collected milk samples every other week from all cows over an 18-week period. We identified the bacterial species in the milk samples, and for the bacteria most likely linked to mastitis, we used DNA technology to distinguish between strains within species. This allowed us to track how the bacteria spread between individuals. 

It turned out that the average duration of infection was short for Staphylococcus epidermidis and Staph. haemolyticus, and that there were no signs of transmission between individuals. This finding calls into question the need for antibiotic treatment against Staph. epidermidis and Staph. haemolyticus, which could potentially reduce antibiotic use.

The findings from this project will form the basis for future studies examining how social interactions among cows can be incorporated into breeding models for milk yield, thereby increasing production while also improving animal welfare.

Publications within the project