Housing conditions and welfare of dairy cows in Serbia
2015
Ostojić Andrić, Dušica | Hristov, Slavče | Petrović, Milan M. | Pantelić, Vlada | Bojkovski, Jovan | Novaković, Željko | Lazarević, Marina | Nikšić, Dragan | Petrović, Milan M.
Research conducted on 16 dairy farms in Serbia has shown that poor housing conditions represent one of the major dairy cows’ welfare problem in our country. This is also an area of animal welfare in which the greatest difference in relation to the situation in EU countries can be observed. Poor comfort conditions are estimated based on a high share of cows that lie outside their lying area (36.5%) as a consequence of inadequate or insufficient size of lying areas. Investigated the farms showed a very poor state of hygiene of dairy cows, with a high percentage of cows with the contaminated lower parts of the legs (84.6%), rump (71.3%) and udder (60.0%), which indicates the inadequate hygiene of lying areas and facilities, insufficient amount of bedding but also disorders of rumen digestion. The biggest welfare problems are present on farms with tied system, also the presence of grazing in our conditions, unlike the EU, is also insufficient from the standpoint of ensuring the welfare of dairy cows.
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