The behaviour and heart rate of 18 Holstein cows was monitored during milking when the cow was (1) milked in a usual place; (2) milked alone in an unfamiliar room; (3) milked in an unfamiliar room while being brushed by a familiar person. Milk yield and residual milk following oxytocin injections were recorded, and blood samples were analyzed for oxytocin and cortisol. Findings indicated that cows defecated\/urinated and vocalized more, as well as made more steps during milking in the unfamiliar room. Providing human contact was able to prevent this increase. In the unfamiliar room, cows kicked and lifted their legs less. Milk yield was lower, residual milk was higher, and oxytocin during milking was lower in the unfamiliar room. Both plasma cortisol and heart rate levels were increased in the unfamiliar room as well. Although human contact reduced heart rates during the initial part of the isolation period, heart rates during the rest of the milking period, as well as cortisol level, milk yield, residual milk, oxytocin during milking, kicking, and leg lifting were not affected by human contact. Cows who were milked in the unfamiliar room showed signs of acute stress, which was apparent in the decreased milk yield, higher residual milk, and reduced oxytocin secretion seen. While human contact did reduce heart rate and some behavioral signs of agitation, it had no effect on other factors like milk yield or hormone response. Therefore, for dairy cows, human contact may not be sufficiently comforting to be able to reduce the endocrine response to stress associated with isolation\/a novel milking environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The behaviour and heart rate of 18 Holstein cows was monitored during milking when the cow was (1) milked in a usual place; (2) milked alone in an unfamiliar room; (3) milked in an unfamiliar room while being brushed by a familiar person. Milk yield and residual milk following oxytocin injections were recorded, and blood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[928],"tags":[13273,8882,13816,65,2984,9628,45,20007,10107,2771,9053,7258,10859,7996,16262,92,20912,110,20911,26223,8742,2285],"class_list":["post-5110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-welfare","tag-acute-stress-swine","tag-al","tag-ass","tag-behavior","tag-behaviourcattlecortisolcowcowsdairy-cowdairy-cowsenvironmentfearful-behaviorhandlingheart-ratehuman-animal-relationshipsinjectionmilkmilkingoxytocinresponsereststress","tag-contact","tag-dairy","tag-gh","tag-human-contact-and-the-effects-of-acute-stress-on-cows-at-milking","tag-iron","tag-leg","tag-milk","tag-nat","tag-oxytocin","tag-pl","tag-plasma","tag-some","tag-stress","tag-t","tag-the-effects","tag-vocal","tag-yield"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}