Effect of freestall housing on prevalence of lameness and milk somatic cell count in industrial dairy farms of Mazandaran province

Over the past few decades, milk production has increased dramatically by employing breeding, feeding and management techniques and during this period, several studies have reported that the level of animal production is significantly affected by animal welfare status and type of housing system. Two of the most important factors influencing the production and economy of dairy farms are the presence or absence of abnormalities of the limbs and mastitis. Disturbance in animal comfort and welfare has increased the odds ratio of development of these abnormalities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the occurrence of lameness and somatic cell count in milk in free stall and non-fossil stall systems in industrial dairy farms of Mazandaran province.
In this study, 4 Holstein dairy farms in Mazandaran province with freestall or non-freestall housing system were used to evaluate the effect of housing system type on the incidence of lameness and somatic cell count of milk, during 2013 and 2014. To investigate the lameness incidence Logical regression (Proc logistic) method was used because of binary nature of data and the Proc Mixed procedure was used to investigate the somatic cell score (SCS). Herd, year and season of calving, parity and type of housing were used as fixed factors and age of first calving for both and days in milk for SCS were considered as Co-variates in the model.
The difference of SCS means in freestall and non-freestall systems was significant P Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that the use of the freestall system in dairy cattle farms, can result in a significant decrease in the incidence of mastitis and lameness. Hence, the use of this system, with respect to the size and cow number to stall number ratio, can improve the welfare and health status of the cows and therefore can make a significant contribution to improve the economic indices and profitability of the dairy herds.