Drinking regime evaluation with continuous ruminal monitoring boluses

Abstract

The aim of this study was to continuously monitored drinking regime of 7 dairy cows of Holstein breed using boluses during 24 weeks of lactation in relation to the outside temperature and observed daily drinking regime with the impact of drinking on rumen temperature at University Experimental Farm in Oponice. Animals were fed once daily and milked 3 times per day. The bolus pH and temperature values implemented via esophagus were measured every 15 minutes (96 data points per day) with accuracy ±0.1 ph and °C. Outside temperature by FREEMETEO meteorological server (48 times per day) was measured. Outside temperature can affect the drinking regime of dairy cows. During lactation weeks with higher outside temperature higher average number of drinking events (ANDE) was determined. The biggest difference between weeks in ANDE 18.33 % (p = 0.000) was found. Daily ANDE 9.25 ±1.85 and average daily temperature (ADT) 19.03 ±5.19 °C were observed. The most of the drinking events (NDE) concentrated to 4 main peaks (25.17 %) during working hours (74.98 %) was found. After the feed intake and milking the highest frequencies of NDE were observed. The highest average ruminal temperature after drinking (ARTAD) during night before first feeding due to lower NDE in this time were found. Overall ARTAD 36.86 °C was observed. The most measured ruminal temperatures after drinking (RTAD) (51.53 %) in the interval 35–37 °C were found. This research proved that continuous ruminal monitoring with boluses is an appropriate tool for drinking regime evaluation and heat stress determination in herd of dairy cows.

Keywords

• dairy cows
• Hostein cattle
• bolus
• rumen
• temperature
• water intake
• outside temperature