Samenvatting

Animal wellbeing is important and it is widely accepted that an animal’s basic needs must be fulfilled. Many factors affect wellbeing of dairy cows. Common health problems are lameness and subclinical mastitis. The aim of this study was to examine changes in proximity and automatic milk system (AMS) visits in case of these diseases. We expected that cows with health problems reduced AMS visits and showed less proximity to other cows. 128-134 dairy cows, housed in free-stalls with access to an AMS, were studied for four weeks. Eight cows with health problem were compared to healthy cows. From the location system we calculated proximity to other cows as a measure for social behaviour, and we recorded AMS visits. We compared proximity between cows with health problems and healthy cows, and cows with health problems and the same cows in a healthy period.Proximity to other cows and AMS visits varied per day. Cows with health problems were more in proximity to other lame cows, compared to healthy controls. Cows with subclinical mastitis showed less AMS visits than healthy controls. Lame cows showed as much AMS visits compared to healthy cows or compared to their own data before they were lame. Cows in higher parities showed less AMS visits while cows in mid-lactation showed more AMS visits.We could not prove that changes in proximity or AMS visits predicted disease. However, cows with health problems showed more proximity to lame cows and cows with subclinical mastitis showed less AMS visits.