Linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) produces abnormal incremental lines or depressions in teeth enamel caused by a deficiency in the growth of calcified tissue. The depth and width of the LEH events can indicate the severity and duration of a stressful life event. LEH can be used to investigate developmental stress, as it will occur when the individual is unable to cope with environmental stressors during development, such as food shortage, pathological challenge or other stressful events. The LEH technique has been used by zoo-archaeologists to obtain information on early domestication and husbandry practices in ancient populations of pigs, where high levels of LEH have been found to correspond to birth and weaning. The objective of this work was to investigate if LEH was present in modern pigs and whether it could be used as a welfare indicator.

The provision of environmental enrichment for pigs is a legal requirement within the EU. However, there is debate as to what constitutes suitable enrichment in commercial environments where straw cannot be used. The objective of this study was to investigate the use of objects by pigs under UK commercial conditions, and the extent to which individual pigs used, or were prevented from using, the enrichment provided.

Modern dairy cows appear to be less ‘robust’ or adaptable than in the past, as typified by high involuntary culling and poorer health. This could be addressed by the use of broader breeding goals and breeding indices that include traits that are likely to improve fertility and health. Body energy balance and growth rate in the first lactation are traits that are likely to underlie health and fertility and have been included in an index of robustness (Wall et al., 2006). However, we need to ensure that the inclusion of these new traits does not have any unforeseen effects on animal behaviour, which may reduce the welfare of the individual or the group she is housed in. Selection to improve body condition may mean that the animals seek increased access to feed. It may be hypothesised that this could lead them to be more aggressive at the feed-trough. Alternatively, they may increase their feed intake by becoming unresponsive to the social and physical environment, and feeding outwith the peak feeding period. This could mean that they become less responsive to their environment and possibly become harder to handle. The aim of this experiment was to compare the behaviour of daughters of bulls which scored high on the functionality sub-index of the robustness index (‘high functionality’ bulls) with daughters of bulls which scored low (‘low functionality’ bulls) on this sub-index. Specifically, we investigated the responsiveness to the environment, by assessing reactions to a novel object and to an unfamiliar person.

Cattle have an innate fear of humans that may be reinforced during the potentially painful routine husbandry procedures performed by humans during the rearing of young calves. This fear may be reduced by positive handling of calves early in the rearing period (Krohn et al., 2001) and by use of calming devices such as blindfolds (Mitchell et al., 2004). Mitchell et al, (2004) found that blindfolding cattle during restraint and simulated husbandry procedures reduced struggling by 44% and decreased heart rate compared to control cattle with unrestricted vision. However, this study did not test the effectiveness of the blindfold during actual invasive procedures. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether blindfolding during disbudding and positive handling of dairy calves would influence the response of calves to human interactions.

Physiological challenges facing newly-calved heifers include parturition, adaptation to a concentrate-rich diet and a negative energy balance caused by the demands of lactation and continued growth. In addition, animals are subject to considerable psychological stress caused by new surroundings, social interactions with new herdmates and increased human contact. Abnormal behaviour, including prolonged time spent standing and reduced eating and rumination activity, may result from these combined challenges and contributes to further problems. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of housing early-lactation heifers solely with other heifers or in a mixed-parity group on the quantity and timing of eating, ruminating, lying, standing and stall use.

Previous research has established the development and patterns of sucking behaviour in sheep, as well as factors potentially affecting them. However, in no case the health of the mammary gland of ewes, i.e. possible presence of mastitis, has been taken into account during these studies. In fact, not a single one of all relative research publications has considered examination of mammary secretion samples, to assess mammary health of the experimental ewes. The objective of the present work was to study whether ovine subclinical mastitis potentially influences dam/offspring behaviours during lactation, with a view to standardizing procedures during investigations of these behaviours.

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas of which the release into the atmosphere is directly linked with animal agriculture, particularly ruminant production. CH4 emissions from ruminant also represent a loss in productive energy for the animal. Development of effective strategies to mitigate these methane emissions will have not only environmental benefits for the planet but also nutritional benefits for the animal. It has been shown that concentrate-rich diets result in a decrease in methanogenesis per unit of animal product (milk, meat). However, some of these diets may have adverse effects on the efficiency of production, e.g. due to risk of acidosis. Our study focused on measuring methane emissions on young bulls fed three contrasting finishing diets characteristics of three intensive levels of production in France.

Livestock are one of the largest single sources of methane emission, equivalent to 15-20 % of total anthropogenic methane. Selective suppression of the rumen protozoa has been suggested to be promising approach to reduce methane release (Moss et al., 2000) as up to 25 % of the methanogens in the rumen are associated with protozoa (Newbold et al., 1995). However, contradictory results have been reported between in vitro and in vivo data and short and long term defaunation experiments (Ranilla et al., 2003). This study was carried out to investigate the effect of the absence of protozoa in the rumen on enteric methane production by lambs.

Methane (CH4) has attracted considerable attention in recent years because of its contribution to the greenhouse effect, as it has a 100-year global warming potential 23 times that of carbon dioxide (IPCC, 2001). Dairy cows are major contributors to the production of methane from the agricultural sector in Europe because of their large numbers and high emission factors. Methane production is affected by several factors, one of which is diet; for example, the type of forage offered to ruminants has an important effect on methane production (Boadi et al., 2004). The aim of this experiment was to investigate how different forage types affected methane production from dairy cows.

A code of good practice was established by each European member state according to the nitrate directive. In Belgium, the nitrogen (N) inputs in pastures from slurry or compost are limited to 210 kg N/ha. Larger quantities can be applied when additional measurements, including soil nitrates analyses are carried on by the farmer. This trial aims to measure nitrogen balance, nitrogen nutrition index (NNI) and soil nitrates contents in pastures fertilised with mineral nitrogen fertiliser, pig slurry or cattle compost, the pastures being grazed by dairy cows and the fertilisation being brought at similar efficient N levels. NNI was calculated as the ratio of the actual N concentration to the sward N concentration it would have to be at a similar biomass in order to sustain a non limiting growth and a biomass accumulation (Lemaire and Gastal, 1997). Cattle compost was produced from cattle manure unloaded through the beaters of a spreader.

Genetic selection has dramatically increased the growth potential of broilers. A positive correlation exists between growth rate and the occurrence of leg disorders (Sørensen et al., 1999), and rapid growth rate is widely presumed to be a fundamental cause of leg ill-health in the modern broiler. However, it is recognised that the simultaneous improvement of growth rate and reduction in incidence of leg disorders is possible (Sørensen, 1992). The objective of this study was to explore the impact that selection for growth has had on broiler welfare, as measured by leg health and mortality, using data from genetic control strains.

Previous studies have indicated genetic variation in traits describing the overall satisfaction of a farmer with daughters of a particular sire (Cue et al., 1996; Visscher and Goddard, 1995). Such traits are useful in determining cow-level factors contributing to overall farmer satisfaction as well as providing supplementary information in sire selection. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether genetic variation in a subjectively scored trait reflecting farmer satisfaction existed in Ireland and to attempt to elucidate the factors contributing to farmer satisfaction.

Selection for increased milk production may have resulted in the “shift” in nutrient partitioning towards milk production away from maintenance of functional fitness. This has led to the conclusion that dairy cows appear to be less ‘robust’ than in the past. The current national index, £PLI, combines the predicted transmitting ability (PTA) for production and functional traits, multiplied by their relative economic values, with the overall goal of maximising cow profit. Stott et al. (2005) updated economic weights for £PLI, increasing the relative weight on functional traits, but showed that the genetic responses in functional traits were still expected to decline, albeit at a slower rate compared to selection on production alone. The aim of this work is to develop a Robustness Index for UK dairy cattle that halts the predicted genetic decline in health and fertility traits using a restricted index approach.

Environmental sensitivity exists when an environmental difference has more effect on some genotypes than on others (Falconer and Mackay, 1996). Quantifying the degree of environmental sensitivity shown by individual sires allows us to identify sires as specialists (those which rank highly in certain environments) or generalists (those which rank similarly across environments). Dairy farm environments vary enormously and this affects the production and health of the cows. The aims of this study were (1) to relate detailed survey information on farm management systems to information available at the national level to provide a definition of farm environment, and (2) to assess the effect of environment on lifespan.

The decline in dairy cow fertility over the past 30 years has major economic, welfare, genetic and environmental consequences. A significant number of potential replacement heifers either never calve or else complete only a single lactation. The relationships between metabolic status and fertility may change with age as cows reach physical maturity. To determine the reasons behind the high loss rates attributable to infertility, this study tracked a group of animals until the end of their second lactation to compare fertility and metabolic hormone profiles in the same cows at different ages.

Poor reproductive performance is a major problem when considering the sustainability of the modern high yielding dairy cow, with reproductive costs being estimated at £500 million per annum across UK dairy herds (Lamming et al., 1998). Armstrong et al., (2001) stated that poor nutrition causes delayed puberty, aberrant oestrous cycles, lowered conception rates and reduced calf birth weight. Excessive and prolonged negative energy balance (NEB) has, on numerous occasions, been suggested as a major contributor to poor fertility and subsequent increased culling rates. In the present study the effects of a range of dietary treatments on energy balance and reproductive performance were evaluated.

The ability of high-yielding modern dairy cows to perform in the range of systems found on UK dairy farms, and to be profitable and sustainable, needs investigating. As part of a project to study the robustness of such animals, milk-progesterone profiling was used to investigate the reproductive performance of two genotypes of dairy cow on two production systems (Pollott and Coffey, 2006). In this paper differences in fertility between genotypes and systems was investigated using energy balance (EB) and body condition score (CS) as explanatory factors.

Breeding programmes for the Holstein-Friesian have historically focused on improved milk production with little emphasis on functional traits such as fertility or disease resistance. In contrast, Norwegian dairy cattle have been bred using a multi-trait selection procedure. Differences in selection procedures for the two breeds may have major effects on the efficiency of food use and partitioning of nutrients that may offset the potential advantages of improvements in functional traits. Recently, Yan et al., (2006) reported that Holstein-Friesian cows partitioned more energy into milk and less to body tissue than Norwegian cows. The objectives of the present study were to examine possible differences in nitrogen partitioning and the efficiency of N utilization between Holstein-Friesian and Norwegian dairy cows.

The length and severity of negative energy balance postpartum is unfavourably correlated (genetically & phenotypically) with interval to first ovulation (de Vries & Veerkamp, 2000). During this period concentrations of free fatty acids (FFA), glucose, growth hormone (GH), insulin, insulin like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and other hormones, all of which have links with many aspects of reproduction, are altered. A moderate heritability and genetic correlation between these parameters in the female and male (who is ultimately of most use for selection purposes) calf with female fertility could allow juvenile selection for fertility. With this in mind the objective of this study was to estimate the heritability of FFA, glucose, GH, insulin and IGF-1 concentration in male and female calves.

The modern high-producing dairy cow is sub-fertile. Early embryo loss, within the first 16 days of gestation, is the greatest contributor to reproductive wastage (Sreenan et al., 2001), though the causes for this are not well understood. Nutrition plays a fundamental role in reproduction and specifically there is emerging evidence that supplemental polyunsaturated dietary fatty acids (PUFA) can increase cow fertility (Thatcher et al., 2006). For example, in-vitro studies suggest that the ω-3 PUFAs, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) may be pivotal in the suppression of endometrial prostaglandin F2α synthesis, a critical regulator of luteolysis and hence embryo survival, though the biochemical pathways involved have not been elucidated. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of dietary supplementation of ω-3 PUFA on mRNA expression of key uterine endometrial genes involved in PGF2α biosynthesis.