title: Electronic monitoring of rumination activity as an indicator of health status and production traits in high-yielding dairy cows.
abstract: In view of the demonstrated relationship between rumination time and health status, the general welfare and metabolic condition of ruminants are often assessed by the examination of rumen function. The main goal of this study was to monitor the daily rumination activity (RA) and its connection with actual liveweight (LW), milk yield (MY) and with two diseases (subclinical hyperketonaemia - SHK, uterine disease - UD) in 96 cows on the basis of a total of 1638 observations in Israel. The studied sample gave a highly significant response, showing that the selected diseases had a diminishing impact on RA and LW and no influence on MY. It can be concluded that the change of RA as determined by electronic monitoring, complemented by the change of LW, is a useful general indicator of health status and subclinical disease before the appearance of clinical signs.
authors.affiliation: Szent István University Institute of Animal Breeding, Nutrition and Laboratory Animal Science, Faculty of Veterinary Science István u. 2 H-1078 Budapest Hungary.
authors.forename: András
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gáspárdy
authors.affiliation: Szent István University Institute of Animal Breeding, Nutrition and Laboratory Animal Science, Faculty of Veterinary Science István u. 2 H-1078 Budapest Hungary.
authors.forename: Gingis
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Efrat
authors.affiliation: Szent István University Large Animal Clinic Üllő, Faculty of Veterinary Science Üllő Hungary.
authors.forename: Arpád Csaba
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Bajcsy
authors.affiliation: Szent István University Institute of Animal Breeding, Nutrition and Laboratory Animal Science, Faculty of Veterinary Science István u. 2 H-1078 Budapest Hungary.
authors.forename: Sándor György
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Fekete
keywords: Dairy cattle welfare; health status monitoring; rumination activity; subclinical hyperketonaemia; uterine disease