“Our results showed that cows kept in tie stalls with hard concrete floors spend more time per day standing without feeding and tended to spend less time lying. Feeding time was not affected. The reduction in lying time was due primarily to a reduction in the frequency of lying bouts: the mean duration of bouts of both lying and standing were actually higher on the concrete floors than on the rubber floors. Thus, the main effect of the softer flooring was to increase the willingness of the cows to change posture, that is, to lie down and to stand up. Once the cows were lying down or standing, they continued to lie or stand for a shorter period of time on the softer flooring. The current results confirm those of Haley et al. (2001), who found a similar pattern over a shorter period of time. The present results suggest that cattle did not adapt to the harder floors, at least over the first 16 wk of lactation. These results confirm findings for free stalls, in which soft stall floors have been shown to increase lying time and stall acceptability (Tucker et al., 2003; Wagner-Storch et al., 2003; Fulwider and Palmer 2004).”
