Survey of disbudding practice on Czech dairy farms

STANĚK, Stanislav, ŠÁROVÁ, Radka, NEJEDLÁ, Eliška, ŠLOSÁRKOVÁ, Soňa a DOLEŽAL, Oldřich. Survey of disbudding practice on Czech dairy farms. Journal of Dairy Science, 2018, 101, 830-839. ISSN 0022-0302.
Kateg. publikaceVědecké publikace impaktované
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Abstrakt

Disbudding is a routine practice in dairy herds. Although this practice is regulated, it vary among farms. The variation may be caused by many factors. The aim of this study was to specify the disbudding practice on dairy farms in the Czech Republic and to assess these practices, including the use of pain mitigation medication, by breed, herd size, and sex of the disbudded calves. We analyzed data from 106 Czech dairy farms, which were collected at dairy meetings in 2014–2015. The farmers answered questions regarding the farm’s basic characteristics, disbudding practice, and his/her attitude to the pain caused by disbudding. To test the influence of breed, herd size, and sex of calves on different variables, logistic regression models were used. Disbudding was performed in 92.5% of the surveyed farms; 63.3% of dairy calves were disbudded before 4 wk of age, and Czech Fleckvieh calves were 2.8 times more likely to be disbudded before 4 wk of age than Holstein calves. The hot-iron was the most used method (69.4%). Calves were 4.5 times more likely to be disbudded by hot iron in herds where both heifers and bulls were disbudded than in herds where only heifers were disbudded. Most (>90%) surveyed farms did not use any pre- or post-procedure medication to mitigate the pain. The disbudding was performed mainly by farm personnel (94.9%), who were trained by a veterinarian or veterinary technician (46.9%) or by other farm personnel (37.8%) or were not trained (15.3%). Most farmers estimated the pain caused by disbudding to be mild or moderate (20.4 or 45.9%, respectively) and 15.3% of farmers estimated it to be severe. Almost a quarter of interviewed farmers were unable to assess the duration of pain, 39.8% farmers estimated the pain lasts only several minutes. We detected a tendency that farmers of larger herds estimated pain duration to be shorter (odds ratio = 1.2).

ProjektKomplexní řízení mlezivové výživy telat a její zlepšování jako přirozený nástroj k podpoře zdraví telat, tlumení nákaz a snížení potřeby antibiotik, Dlouhodobý koncepční rozvoj výzkumné organizace
OdděleníEtologie, Technologie a technika chovu hospodářských zvířat