Lying behavior

Observing lying behaviors can indicate comfort around resting, and overall comfort with barn and stall design. The conditions often measured include:

• Time needed to lie down - recorded from when one carpal joint bends and is lowered and ends when the hind quarter has fallen down and the animal has pulled the front leg out from under the body
• Animals colliding with housing equipment while trying to lie down - scored as a 0 if no collision occurs, and a 2 if the cow contacts any part of her body with housing equipment and the contact is obviously seen and heard
• Animals lying partly or completely outside the lying area - count the number of animals lying completely in, completely out, or partly out of the lying area

Disease indicators

In addition to the aforementioned measures diarrhea, ocular discharge, and nasal discharge, these measures can be assessed for a more cohesive look at the prevalence of disease on a farm:

• Coughing - defined as a sudden and noisy expulsion of air from the lungs, and is recorded as the mean number of coughs per animal per 15 minutes
• Vulvar discharge - purulent effluent from the vulva or plaques of pus on the bottom side of the tail; scored as a 0 if no discharge is present and a 2 if there is discharge
• Mortality - the percentage of animals dead, euthanized, and emergency slaughtered on the farm in the past 12 months
• Dystocia - the percentage of calvings where major assistance was required in the past 12 months
• Downer cows - the percentage of cases of non-ambulatory cows in the last 12 months

Behavioral and emotional indicators

The following measures can be difficult to objectively assess, but are intended to get at the appropriate natural emotional and behavioral state and well-being of the cattle:

• Expression of social behaviors - Specifically, the expression of agonistic, or aggressive, behaviors. Behaviors recorded include head butting, displacement, chasing, fighting, and chasing-up
• Avoidance distance - Start standing 2m away from an individual animal, then walk towards them at a speed of one step per second with one arm held overhead; Record the distance at which the animal withdraws to avoid you, or record if the animal allows you to touch it (avoidance distance = 0cm)
• Qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA) - This measure looks at body language, and defines a group of cows based on how much they express certain qualities. The qualities that are used are: active, relaxed, fearful, agitated, calm, frustrated, friendly, bored, playful, positively occupied, irritable, uneasy, sociable, apathetic, happy, distressed, lively, inquisitive, content and indifferent. Each measure is scored from "minimum" (no animals show it) to "maximum" (all animals dominantly express it) and the group is given an overall score