Daily and seasonal patterns of lying and standing behaviour of dairy cows in a frestall barn

To examine the influence of environmental parameters on animal behaviour, an experimental programme was set up at a farm where anomalous behaviour of cows had been previously noted. The research was carried out in a free-stall barn (75 cows) where cow behaviour has been recorded by a time lapsed video system from June 2004 untill June 2005. This paper aims to investigate daily behaviour pattern in a herd and to examine cows’ response to different environmental conditions through the analysis of the data related to four weeks in different climatic conditions (August, October, December and January). The behaviour of cows has been expressed through indices based on number of cows involved in different activities (standing, lying, eating and drinking). Simultaneously temperature and humidity within the cowshed have been recorded using dataloggers and Temperature Humidity Index (THI) has been calculated. The comparison of behaviour in different hours of the day shows a strong diurnal pattern, while the behaviour at the same hours of different seasons highlight a significant difference only in daylight hours, despite the difference in temperature. The behavioural indexes in summer and autumn differ significantly only one hour in the day (3 pm) while THI values are widely different (mean values of 73.26 and 62.17; standard deviation of 3.85 and 2.41, respectively for the two periods). The results obtained suggest that THI values are not sufficient to explain the influence of the barn on cows’ behaviour.