Cows behaving badly

A cow’s behaviour at milking is an indicator of her comfort or discomfort with the milking routine and/or machine. The Countdown theme this month looks at the link between poor cow behaviour and increased risk of mastitis.

Very often the changes required to improve cow behaviour cost little or nothing to implement.  It may be a cheap investment for farmers to make resulting in a more pleasant and stress-free working environment, as well as the other benefits to production and milk quality

We’ve written some tips on cow behaviour for use in your newsletters.

Contents

1.     Cow behaviour comes from people behaviour

2.     Cow behaviour affects milk quality

3.     Cow behaviour is a simple way to assess milking

4.     Gentle "break-in" of the heifers reduces mastitis

The grabs are also available in an MS Word file - without the images

Click here for more tips and stories