In this work, we conducted research on dairy cows to find out whether the level of fear of an individual animal depends on the milking method (robotic milking, parlour milking, and on the stand), and whether there is a relationship between fearfulness, age of the animal, and milk yield. Cow fear level was determined using the avoidance distance test developed by Waiblinger et al. (2006). The tests were conducted on six different Slovenian cattle farms over a period of three weeks, on three consecutive days per week during morning and evening milking. The procedure was as follows: the subject entered the feeding aisle and stood two metres away from the feeding table where the animals were located. The ear tag number of the individual animal was then noted, and then the subject approached the individual cow slowly, one step per second, with one hand extended in front of her. Based on the distance of the cow from the subject's hand, the subject rated the distance according to a previously developed rating scale. We found that cows were most fearful when raised using the robotic milking method and least anxious when raised using the parlour milking method. These results were expected since robotic milking has already been mentioned in the literature as the milking method that increases fearfulness of cows. We also found that cows in the age group of 3 to 5 years were the least fearful, while cows in the first lactation were the most fearful, as expected, as cows show less anxious behaviour with increasing age. We did not find any correlation between nursing and the level of fear. The interpretation of the results is based on the comparison of the numerical data.
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