Design of Free Stalls for Dairy Herds: A Review†
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Design of free stalls for dairy herds, a Review is a work focus on free stall system. The approach of the authors is well organized and as a review the ref. of literature is constant in all aspects investigated.
I have only a few suggestions to improve the paper:
1) "The surface for lying" in the description of preferences and behavior of cows try to add more literature in the scenarios in the hot climate.
2) Friction: specify the thickness layer (mm) for sand and sawdust
3) Bedding materials: I suggest adding info available in "Properties of conventional and alternative bedding materials for dairy cattle" Ferraz et all.(Journal of Dairy Science Volume 103, Issue 9, September 2020, Pages 8661-8674)
4) Optimal bedding should provide thermal insulation or cooling (depending on the temperature), and in my opinion also humidity, so the importance of water capacity of bedding materials.
5) probably tab. 2 need to be formatted
6) farmers have to consider economic aspects, in the paper this part is a little poor if is possible to increase
7) In "Future perspectives" are mentioned IoT and sensors, in a review I think is important to mention PLF and explain how PLF can be used in Free Stalls
8) on row 123 there is a punctuation error
9) on row 83 specify that ACTH hormone
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for the comments, they were helpful in improving the manuscript. We copied the original comments and our answers start with AU:
Design of free stalls for dairy herds, a Review is a work focus on free stall system. The approach of the authors is well organized and as a review the ref. of literature is constant in all aspects investigated.
I have only a few suggestions to improve the paper:
1) "The surface for lying" in the description of preferences and behavior of cows try to add more literature in the scenarios in the hot climate.
AU: We now included: Opposite, in a warmer climate, it is discussed whether bedding materials with e.g. high thermal conductivity would be beneficial [82,83], and it is also found a preference for “cold” limestone over for instance “warm” wood shavings [84]. This illustrates that the choice of bedding could also be used as a part of heat stress abatement strategies. Ortiz et al. showed that the use of forced cooling is preferred by the cows during warm periods [81].” (Line 163-167)
2) Friction: specify the thickness layer (mm) for sand and sawdust
AU: This is now included: “Some abrasive materials, like sand, are not abrasive when applied in a thick layer (>10-15 cm) and even sawdust, that can be considered as soft and non-abrasive, be-comes abrasive if there is only a thin layer (a few millimeters) present [86].” (Line 206-208)
3) Bedding materials: I suggest adding info available in "Properties of conventional and alternative bedding materials for dairy cattle" Ferraz et all.(Journal of Dairy Science Volume 103, Issue 9, September 2020, Pages 8661-8674)
AU: This reference has now been included. (Line 221-223)
4) Optimal bedding should provide thermal insulation or cooling (depending on the temperature), and in my opinion also humidity, so the importance of water capacity of bedding materials.
AU: Thermal insulation aspects have been mentioned already in remark 1 (Line 163-167) The water binding aspects now are mentioned: “In this respect the water holding capacity of the bedding material is important [101]. However, sand does not absorb water. It just drains to the bottom of the free stall and thus keeps the top layer dry.” (Line 254-256).
5) probably tab. 2 need to be formatted
AU: We reformatted the table 2.
6) farmers have to consider economic aspects, in the paper this part is a little poor if is possible to increase
AU: This part has been increased.
7) In "Future perspectives" are mentioned IoT and sensors, in a review I think is important to mention PLF and explain how PLF can be used in Free Stalls
AU: This part has been increased. “They can be integrated in a system of precision livestock farming [34,171]. The computer can provide information about stall use, lying times and number of lying bouts. That information can be used to evaluate the quality of the free stalls.” (Line 652-655)
8) on row 123 there is a punctuation error
AU: corrected
9) on row 83 specify that ACTH hormone
AU: Done. It now reads: “to an acute stressor or ACTH injection changed increased”.
Reviewer 2 Report
The review provides a very useful overview of stall structure. It may therefore present a useful contribution to the scientific community. However, at the moment it feels a bit lacking purpose and structure and I was hoping for a bit better insight into the consequences of stall design on cow comfort, health and economy after reading the review (as suggested from the abstract). Therefore, I suggest it still requires major revision before it could be accepted. I have serval major and minor comments.
The first is that the authors do not clearly state the purpose of this review. Is it just to give some guidelines for people designing stalls? Is it to identify missing knowledge in the research on stall design? Is it to provide an overview of the consequences of stall design on cow comfort, health and economy? The purpose of this review should be clearly presented in the abstract and introduction and then addressed again in the conclusion.
Secondly, the structure of the review is not very clear. Please provide, at the end of the introduction, a short section to describe the structure of the paper and what this structure serves (this would further help to clarify the purpose of the paper). Also, the use of different fonts is not clear enough to distinguish between sections, sub-sections and sub-sub-sections. Better use numbers (1, 1.1 and 1.1.1 etc) for these.
Thirdly, from the abstract I was expecting to gain a better overview of how the stall design can affect cow lying behaviour/comfort and health and while the authors address the consequences for cow comfort, health, cleanliness and economic considerations throughout the paper, they seem a bit lost in the entire text. It would be good if they could be addressed more explicitly in every section so that it is clearer which aspects are affected most by certain stall features. In addition, it would help to provide, at the end, a short overview of which aspects of stall design are particularly important for cow lying behaviour, cow comfort, health, cleanliness and economy.
Finally, not all readers may be expected to be familiar with free-stall design and the names of the different features. Therefore, it would help if figure 3 could be introduced earlier and adapted to show all the aspects of the cubicle that are addressed in the text, so that the readers can immediately find the location of each element. Also, a short description at the start of each section would be helpful to better understand the feature that is being discussed.
Minor comments:
L36: please change “…but on the other they are faced…” into “…..but on the other hand they are faced….”
L41-2: “Cows prefer an open pack area compared to relatively comfortable free stalls [19,20]”: this sentence is difficult to read, please rephrase.
L46-7: “Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper”. This sentence is very vague please be more specific regarding the aim of the review (see major comments)
L49: I would suggest changing the title into “the history of the free stall system” to avoid confusion with the title in line 130. Also, the structure that follows is not very clear. The topics that follow “lying behaviour”, “Designing free stalls”, “Number of cows per stall” and “the free stall” seem a bit all over the place and without a clear order. Please try to structure these sections in a logical order and give them clear titles to distinguish between them.
L50-1: the use of “seems” suggests that there is some doubt in this statement, which I find difficult to believe. Therefore, please change into “was invented”.
L59-61: “It is interesting that the inventor of the system already from the very beginning used soft mattresses and focused on stall size versus space needed for performing natural behaviour and movements.”: this remark is a bit lost on me, why is it interesting?
L66-71: “The first free stalls ……seems to be industry-driven.” This section misses references and also list the changes made without explaining the reason for them. A short explanation of the welfare and economic motivation/consequences of these changes would greatly improve this section
L82-3: “Also the reaction of cortisol to an acute stressor or ACTH injection changed”. Please specify how this changed (increase or decrease?)
L84-6: “Behavioural activity is used as an indication of animal comfort, and lying and standing behaviours are often used as a sign of well-being in cattle and to evaluate the quality of stalls [2,31]”: this is true, but it is important mention in which way they are indicators of animal comfort. Lying may be considered a sign of positive welfare, while standing is usually more a sign of negative welfare and activity in general has no clear association with welfare, since increased activity may be more indicative of e.g. stress and pain, while decreased activity may be a sign of illness (se e.g. L.M.C. Leliveld, G. Provolo. A Review of Welfare Indicators of Indoor-Housed Dairy Cow as a Basis for Integrated Automatic Welfare Assessment Systems. Animals 2020, 10, 1430)
L92-3: “but when comparing within a certain husbandry system, lying time is an attractive indicator for welfare.” This is not exactly correct and clashs with the statement in the previous sentence. Even for comparisons within a certain system, the aspects of the cow (e.g. illness, milk yield etc.) should be controlled for.
L94: does the title refer here to the system or just the cubicle? from the section it is not really clear, but the focus seems mainly on the cubicle
L97-101: “The design of the free stalls … partitions or supports”: it would be good to refer here to a source that describes the natural lying behaviour and positions of cows.
L111-113: “Some precautions are …. with the farmer [50]”. I’m not sure what you want to write here. Are these other factors than stall design that may affect lying behaviour? They seem quite random and considering that one of the factors is discussed extensively in the next section, I don't know if this sentence serves to introduce the rest of the factors that will be discussed or not….please rephrase so that it is clearer if this list is complete or not.
L123-4: please replace “however” with “although” and “but” with “it”
L132: please explain what is the difference and be then consistent in the use of the terms “bedding” and “bedding materials”
L137: what do you mean with “construction”. Please consider changing it to “and it can be constructed in different ways”
L159-161: “The general conclusion from the bedding preference literature, reviewed by Tucker and Weary [34], is that dairy cattle prefer softer surfaces.” This sentence would fit better at the start of the section (e.g. line 144)
L169-364: in the discussion of the different bedding materials, I’m missing a bit the comparison between the different materials: which materials are preferred? And which have been found to be better in terms of cow welfare and health? It would be good to have a short section dedicated to this.
L187-8: “The number of teat lesions dropped dramatically with flooring softness >8 mm impact, and the number of involuntary culliongs dropped with increased softness” this relates to softness and therefore fits better in the previous section
L216-7 (title of table 1): “Different flooring materials have different softness levels, and influences differently on the dairy cows.” This sentence is not grammatically correct and I think not really necessary. The second sentence is sufficient here.
L219-20: “The table is only illustrating some plausible effects of flooring softness. 1 Softness is indicative because there is not one common method for measuring softness for all types of floorings.” The first part of this sentence should be in the title (above the table). The table is also missing references.
L263-4: “the bacteria numbers may reach their maximum within 2 days”. Is this under cool conditions or in general? it is not clear from the sentence.
L373-4: “The basis for the table is not well documented, however commonly used, and should preferably be updated in a scientific study”. I don't understand this sentence, I guess the authors refer to table 3, but what do they mean by 'the basis for the table is not well documented' please rephrase.
L375: “herd size”. Do you mean cow size? herd size refers to number of cows, which I guess is not what is meant here
383-4: “cleanliness and shininess of dividers and neck rails may confirm that the chosen dimensions are good” please add the sentence in 518-21 (“If the neck rail is shiny due to repeated body contact (figure 3) and/or the cows have abrasions on the withers, the distance to the curb is too short or the neck rail too low [33]. If the freestalls are dirty and the neck rail is not shiny, the distance to the curb may be too large.”) here to explain.
L385-7: “Finally, one should…..for lateral space,” I don't understand these sentences please rephrase to make them clearer.
Table 3: some numbers that should be subscript are normal font, please change this.
L488: “more popular”. Popular with whom? the cows? please describe it a bit more accurately: did more cows choose stalls with rope dividers?
L454-5: “However, there are reasons to believe that the design of the stall front is of greater importance for stall function compared to divider design per se.” Really? this is not the feeling you get from the preceding text, therefore please provide some argumentation for this.
L498: “to achieve clean stalls”. This needs to be explained, the whole section before was about the space a cow needs, what is the link to clean stalls?
L516: “where the cows may tell us”. This is a bit odd way of writing. I would propose "A practical approach that may tell us whether the position is good for most cows in the herd, is to check… "
L534-5: “because it positions smaller cows and lying cows with less interference with normal rising movements.” This part of the sentence seems grammatically incorrect. Please rephrase.
L542: “large diameter”. How this can reduce contact pressure is not immediately clear. Please clarify.
L537: “Aspects of use”. This is not a very clear title and the purpose of this section is also not very clear. Please rephrase the title to better reflect the section and use the first part introduce what this section will discuss.
L619: “The optimal stall (conclusion)”. With this section title I was expecting a bit more specific guidelines. The conclusion also feels like it's missing something. As I mentioned before the aim of the review should be addressed here again. And Ideally here something should be said that could help direct further research. Also, as I mentioned before I was expecting in the review a bit clearer addressing of the effects on cow lying behaviour/comfort, health etc. This also applies to the conclusion.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for the comments, they were helpful in improving the manuscript. We copied the original comments and our answers start with AU:
The review provides a very useful overview of stall structure. It may therefore present a useful contribution to the scientific community. However, at the moment it feels a bit lacking purpose and structure and I was hoping for a bit better insight into the consequences of stall design on cow comfort, health and economy after reading the review (as suggested from the abstract). Therefore, I suggest it still requires major revision before it could be accepted. I have serval major and minor comments.
The first is that the authors do not clearly state the purpose of this review. Is it just to give some guidelines for people designing stalls? Is it to identify missing knowledge in the research on stall design? Is it to provide an overview of the consequences of stall design on cow comfort, health and economy? The purpose of this review should be clearly presented in the abstract and introduction and then addressed again in the conclusion.
AU: The purpose has been added at the end of the abstract: “This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls.”
And the end of the introduction: “Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper. to improve animal welfare, increase the productive live, and optimize lifetime milk yield. This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls.
The conclusion starts now: “This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls.”
Secondly, the structure of the review is not very clear. Please provide, at the end of the introduction, a short section to describe the structure of the paper and what this structure serves (this would further help to clarify the purpose of the paper). Also, the use of different fonts is not clear enough to distinguish between sections, sub-sections and sub-sub-sections. Better use numbers (1, 1.1 and 1.1.1 etc) for these.
AU: The structure of the review is outlined now at the end of the introduction:
“First a brief history is presented, followed by several general aspects of a free stall barn. Then the components (bedding, dimensions, dividers, etc.) of the free stall are described. Finally, the impact on animal welfare and economic aspects are discussed.”
The (sub)sections have now been numbered.
Thirdly, from the abstract I was expecting to gain a better overview of how the stall design can affect cow lying behaviour/comfort and health and while the authors address the consequences for cow comfort, health, cleanliness and economic considerations throughout the paper, they seem a bit lost in the entire text. It would be good if they could be addressed more explicitly in every section so that it is clearer which aspects are affected most by certain stall features. In addition, it would help to provide, at the end, a short overview of which aspects of stall design are particularly important for cow lying behaviour, cow comfort, health, cleanliness and economy.
AU: We think that all these aspects are already mentioned in the specific paragraphs and in the conclusion.
Finally, not all readers may be expected to be familiar with free-stall design and the names of the different features. Therefore, it would help if figure 3 could be introduced earlier and adapted to show all the aspects of the cubicle that are addressed in the text, so that the readers can immediately find the location of each element. Also, a short description at the start of each section would be helpful to better understand the feature that is being discussed.
AU: The figure is now presented earlier in the text and the numbers of the paragraphs are mentioned in the caption. Short descriptions have been added where appropriate.
Minor comments:
L36: please change “…but on the other they are faced…” into “…..but on the other hand they are faced….”
AU: done
L41-2: “Cows prefer an open pack area compared to relatively comfortable free stalls [19,20]”: this sentence is difficult to read, please rephrase.
AU: done. It reads now: “For example, cows prefer an open pack area in comparison with comfortable free stalls [20,21].
L46-7: “Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper”. This sentence is very vague please be more specific regarding the aim of the review (see major comments)
AU: It reads now:” Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper to improve animal welfare, increase the productive live, and optimize lifetime milk yield. This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls. First a brief history is presented, followed by several general aspects of a free stall barn. Then the components (bedding, dimensions, dividers, etc.) of the free stall are described. Finally, the impact on animal welfare and economic aspects are discussed.”
L49: I would suggest changing the title into “the history of the free stall system” to avoid confusion with the title in line 130. Also, the structure that follows is not very clear. The topics that follow “lying behaviour”, “Designing free stalls”, “Number of cows per stall” and “the free stall” seem a bit all over the place and without a clear order. Please try to structure these sections in a logical order and give them clear titles to distinguish between them.
AU: The title has been changed accordingly and the numbering of the paragraphs gives more clarity
L50-1: the use of “seems” suggests that there is some doubt in this statement, which I find difficult to believe. Therefore, please change into “was invented”.
AU: The word ‘seems’ was used on purpose here. There is no clear ‘inventor’ and in the USA there are also people that claim to be the first to have used free stalls. We want to avoid this discussion.
L59-61: “It is interesting that the inventor of the system already from the very beginning used soft mattresses and focused on stall size versus space needed for performing natural behaviour and movements.”: this remark is a bit lost on me, why is it interesting?
AU: We find this interesting because many farmers have used no bedding or rather hard bedding materials for decades (In fact some still do). Also the dimensions of the free stalls are far from acceptable on many farms.
L66-71: “The first free stalls ……seems to be industry-driven.” This section misses references and also list the changes made without explaining the reason for them. A short explanation of the welfare and economic motivation/consequences of these changes would greatly improve this section
AU: The section is rephrased. “All these improvements in design, industry driven or science based, have had major impact on animal welfare and farm economy, and is the basis for modern dairy hous-ing today.” And 11 references have been added.
L82-3: “Also the reaction of cortisol to an acute stressor or ACTH injection changed”. Please specify how this changed (increase or decrease?)
AU: “changed” has been replaced by “increased”.
L84-6: “Behavioural activity is used as an indication of animal comfort, and lying and standing behaviours are often used as a sign of well-being in cattle and to evaluate the quality of stalls [2,31]”: this is true, but it is important mention in which way they are indicators of animal comfort. Lying may be considered a sign of positive welfare, while standing is usually more a sign of negative welfare and activity in general has no clear association with welfare, since increased activity may be more indicative of e.g. stress and pain, while decreased activity may be a sign of illness (se e.g. L.M.C. Leliveld, G. Provolo. A Review of Welfare Indicators of Indoor-Housed Dairy Cow as a Basis for Integrated Automatic Welfare Assessment Systems. Animals 2020, 10, 1430)
AU: The last sentences of the paragraph now read: “One should, therefore, not compare lying times strictly in order to define better welfare, but when comparing within a certain husbandry system, lying time is an attractive indicator for welfare, that might be measured automatically with a sensor [34]. Lying may be considered a sign of positive welfare, while standing is usually more a sign of negative welfare and activity in general has no clear association with welfare, since increased activity may be more indicative of e.g. stress and pain, while decreased activity may be a sign of illness [34].”
L92-3: “but when comparing within a certain husbandry system, lying time is an attractive indicator for welfare.” This is not exactly correct and clashs with the statement in the previous sentence. Even for comparisons within a certain system, the aspects of the cow (e.g. illness, milk yield etc.) should be controlled for.
AU: We think that we covered this in the previous remark.
L94: does the title refer here to the system or just the cubicle? from the section it is not really clear, but the focus seems mainly on the cubicle
AU: A free stall = cubicle. Compost- or straw bedded, free range, packs are something else.
L97-101: “The design of the free stalls … partitions or supports”: it would be good to refer here to a source that describes the natural lying behaviour and positions of cows.
AU: A reference has been included: Van Erp-van der Kooij, E.; Almalik, O.; Cavestany, D.; Roelofs, J.; Van Eerdenburg, F. Lying postures of dairy cows in cubicles and on pasture. Animals 2019, 9, 183, doi:10.3390/ani9040183.
L111-113: “Some precautions are …. with the farmer [51]”. I’m not sure what you want to write here. Are these other factors than stall design that may affect lying behaviour? They seem quite random and considering that one of the factors is discussed extensively in the next section, I don't know if this sentence serves to introduce the rest of the factors that will be discussed or not….please rephrase so that it is clearer if this list is complete or not.
AU: Rephrased into: “Other conditions, like number of cows per stall, barn lay-out, previous experience with free stalls (early adaptation to the system) and the interactions between animals as well as with the farmer [64] should also be taken into consideration when designing a free stall based system.”
L123-4: please replace “however” with “although” and “but” with “it”
AU: done
L132: please explain what is the difference and be then consistent in the use of the terms “bedding” and “bedding materials”
AU: We removed ‘bedding’.
L137: what do you mean with “construction”. Please consider changing it to “and it can be constructed in different ways”
AU: we added: ‘and type of divider’.
L159-161: “The general conclusion from the bedding preference literature, reviewed by Tucker and Weary [34], is that dairy cattle prefer softer surfaces.” This sentence would fit better at the start of the section (e.g. line 144)
AU: Indeed, so we moved it.
L169-364: in the discussion of the different bedding materials, I’m missing a bit the comparison between the different materials: which materials are preferred? And which have been found to be better in terms of cow welfare and health? It would be good to have a short section dedicated to this.
AU: There is not one ‘best’ option. It all depends on what kind of farm one has, where it is located, etc. In Norway, for example, sand is very hard to get. An organic farm needs good quality natural manure as fertilizer, so straw is excellent there. In table 1 several aspects are summarized.
L187-8: “The number of teat lesions dropped dramatically with flooring softness >8 mm impact, and the number of involuntary cullings dropped with increased softness” this relates to softness and therefore fits better in the previous section
AU: The sentence has been moved. The reference is updated.
L216-7 (title of table 1): “Different flooring materials have different softness levels, and influences differently on the dairy cows.” This sentence is not grammatically correct and I think not really necessary. The second sentence is sufficient here.
AU: it has been removed
L219-20: “The table is only illustrating some plausible effects of flooring softness. 1 Softness is indicative because there is not one common method for measuring softness for all types of floorings.” The first part of this sentence should be in the title (above the table). The table is also missing references.
AU: Rephrased according to suggestion, and references added.
L263-4: “the bacteria numbers may reach their maximum within 2 days”. Is this under cool conditions or in general? it is not clear from the sentence.
AU: We have added ‘under common conditions’.
L373-4: “The basis for the table is not well documented, however commonly used, and should preferably be updated in a scientific study”. I don't understand this sentence, I guess the authors refer to table 3, but what do they mean by 'the basis for the table is not well documented' please rephrase.
AU: The publication of Irish & Merrill is not providing detailed information about how they got to these dimensions.
L375: “herd size”. Do you mean cow size? herd size refers to number of cows, which I guess is not what is meant here
AU: This has been changed: ‘mean size of the cows in the herd’.
383-4: “cleanliness and shininess of dividers and neck rails may confirm that the chosen dimensions are good” please add the sentence in 518-21 (“If the neck rail is shiny due to repeated body contact (figure 3) and/or the cows have abrasions on the withers, the distance to the curb is too short or the neck rail too low [34]. If the freestalls are dirty and the neck rail is not shiny, the distance to the curb may be too large.”) here to explain.
AU: we have added ‘(meaning not clean or shiny)’.
L385-7: “Finally, one should…..for lateral space,” I don't understand these sentences please rephrase to make them clearer.
AU: These sentences have been changed. “Finally, one should be careful to assess single stall design parameters isolated from others. A restrictive stall front design is associated with a higher need for lateral space [148]. The location of this lateral lunge space depends on the length of the free stall. It should be placed in such a way that the cow has an easy, natural access [131].”
Table 3: some numbers that should be subscript are normal font, please change this.
AU: done
L488: “more popular”. Popular with whom? the cows? please describe it a bit more accurately: did more cows choose stalls with rope dividers?
AU: The sentence has been changed into: ‘Gwynn et al. [165] found that dividers with a rope replacing a fixed bar were preferred by the cows above the original fixed version.’
L454-5: “However, there are reasons to believe that the design of the stall front is of greater importance for stall function compared to divider design per se.” Really? this is not the feeling you get from the preceding text, therefore please provide some argumentation for this.
AU: The sentence has been deleted.
L498: “to achieve clean stalls”. This needs to be explained, the whole section before was about the space a cow needs, what is the link to clean stalls?
AU: indeed this sentence was rather strange. No idea what happened here. It now reads: “No head rails should e.g. be positioned between the top of a brisket board and 0.7 m above the floor, this should be preferably 1 m.”.
L516: “where the cows may tell us”. This is a bit odd way of writing. I would propose "A practical approach that may tell us whether the position is good for most cows in the herd, is to check… "
AU: the sentence has been changed accordingly
L534-5: “because it positions smaller cows and lying cows with less interference with normal rising movements.” This part of the sentence seems grammatically incorrect. Please rephrase.
L542: “large diameter”. How this can reduce contact pressure is not immediately clear. Please clarify.
L537: “Aspects of use”. This is not a very clear title and the purpose of this section is also not very clear. Please rephrase the title to better reflect the section and use the first part introduce what this section will discuss.
AU: The title has been changed into: “Improved options for other behaviour”
It now explains: “As explained before, comfortable free stalls will lead to longer lying times and thus a longer occupancy of these free stalls [92,116]. This means that fewer animals (except those feeding, eating, etc.), will stand, walk and thereby occupy space in the walkways were they perform other activities.”
L619: “The optimal stall (conclusion)”. With this section title I was expecting a bit more specific guidelines. The conclusion also feels like it's missing something. As I mentioned before the aim of the review should be addressed here again. And Ideally here something should be said that could help direct further research. Also, as I mentioned before I was expecting in the review a bit clearer addressing of the effects on cow lying behaviour/comfort, health etc. This also applies to the conclusion.
AU: The purpose of the review has been added at the start of the conclusion. The main conclusions of the review are presented here. It is not possible to give the exact optimal dimensions because these depend on the size of the cows and this varies among farms. The ideal bedding material is also depending on location and availability as explained in the review.
Reviewer 3 Report
General comments:
The manuscript by Van Eerdenburg and Ruud reviews the design of free stalls for dairy herds to improve animal welfare, increase productive live, and increase milk yield. The authors did a great job in putting a comprehensive view for the free stall system from aspects of cows’ lying behavior, free stall designing, number of cows per stall, the surface for lying, cows comfort, and economics. The current version is in a good shape for publication. Only two minor points need to be addressed.
Minor points:
Line (L) 31-32: Without published data, it is not convincing to state that many cows have productive lives of over 15 years.
L33-34: Major reasons for culling should be listed. Most cows were culled because of infertility or other periparturient diseases. The design of free stalls is not the major reason for culling.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for the comments, they were helpful in improving the manuscript. We copied the original comments and our answers start with AU:
The manuscript by Van Eerdenburg and Ruud reviews the design of free stalls for dairy herds to improve animal welfare, increase productive live, and increase milk yield. The authors did a great job in putting a comprehensive view for the free stall system from aspects of cows’ lying behavior, free stall designing, number of cows per stall, the surface for lying, cows comfort, and economics. The current version is in a good shape for publication. Only two minor points need to be addressed.
Minor points:
Line (L) 31-32: Without published data, it is not convincing to state that many cows have productive lives of over 15 years.
AU: A reference has been added. Arcos, A. Estudio de la incidencia de algunos factores ambientales relevantes para la producción de leche. Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo, Uruguay, 2008.
L33-34: Major reasons for culling should be listed. Most cows were culled because of infertility or other periparturient diseases. The design of free stalls is not the major reason for culling.
AU: Indeed, infertility is not free-stall related, but mastitis and lameness are. The sentence has been changed in the manuscript and is now: “This may indicate that the conditions on a commercial farm may not be ideal for all dairy cows. Several reasons for culling, like mastitis and lameness [13-16], are free-stall related.” (line 34-35)
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The reviewers have incorporated most of my suggestions and the readability of the manuscript has been improved. Still, I find that several of my concerns have not sufficiently been addressed and, as a consequence, still feel that the purpose and structure of the review are insufficiently clear to the reader. Therefore, I have added some comments to the author response (in italics).
We thank the reviewer for the comments, they were helpful in improving the manuscript. We copied the original comments and our answers start with AU:
The review provides a very useful overview of stall structure. It may therefore present a useful contribution to the scientific community. However, at the moment it feels a bit lacking purpose and structure and I was hoping for a bit better insight into the consequences of stall design on cow comfort, health and economy after reading the review (as suggested from the abstract). Therefore, I suggest it still requires major revision before it could be accepted. I have serval major and minor comments.
The first is that the authors do not clearly state the purpose of this review. Is it just to give some guidelines for people designing stalls? Is it to identify missing knowledge in the research on stall design? Is it to provide an overview of the consequences of stall design on cow comfort, health and economy? The purpose of this review should be clearly presented in the abstract and introduction and then addressed again in the conclusion.
AU: The purpose has been added at the end of the abstract: “This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls.”
Response: While this sentence explains what the authors like to achieve with the review, it doesn’t clarify what they are actually presenting in this review. Please extend this sentence by adding that information: “the aim of this review is to provide an overview of …….., with the aim to assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls”. Also, please move the sentence to line 12 (after “…..their rising movements”).
And the end of the introduction: “Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper. to improve animal welfare, increase the productive live, and optimize lifetime milk yield. This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls.
The conclusion starts now: “This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls.”
Secondly, the structure of the review is not very clear. Please provide, at the end of the introduction, a short section to describe the structure of the paper and what this structure serves (this would further help to clarify the purpose of the paper). Also, the use of different fonts is not clear enough to distinguish between sections, sub-sections and sub-sub-sections. Better use numbers (1, 1.1 and 1.1.1 etc) for these.
AU: The structure of the review is outlined now at the end of the introduction:
“First a brief history is presented, followed by several general aspects of a free stall barn. Then the components (bedding, dimensions, dividers, etc.) of the free stall are described. Finally, the impact on animal welfare and economic aspects are discussed.”
The (sub)sections have now been numbered.
Response: I appreciate that the authors added some description of the structure that follows, but as it is, it still doesn’t help to clarify the structure. A few (but not all) following sections are now mentioned, but without explaining any purpose for discussing them. Please mention all major sections separately (sections 2-7) and explain why these sections need to be addressed (e.g. what is the purpose of addressing lying behaviour here?). I’m sorry to insist on this, but I think it may considerably help the reader to understand the purpose of the paper and its different sections.
Thirdly, from the abstract I was expecting to gain a better overview of how the stall design can affect cow lying behaviour/comfort and health and while the authors address the consequences for cow comfort, health, cleanliness and economic considerations throughout the paper, they seem a bit lost in the entire text. It would be good if they could be addressed more explicitly in every section so that it is clearer which aspects are affected most by certain stall features. In addition, it would help to provide, at the end, a short overview of which aspects of stall design are particularly important for cow lying behaviour, cow comfort, health, cleanliness and economy.
AU: We think that all these aspects are already mentioned in the specific paragraphs and in the conclusion.
Finally, not all readers may be expected to be familiar with free-stall design and the names of the different features. Therefore, it would help if figure 3 could be introduced earlier and adapted to show all the aspects of the cubicle that are addressed in the text, so that the readers can immediately find the location of each element. Also, a short description at the start of each section would be helpful to better understand the feature that is being discussed.
AU: The figure is now presented earlier in the text and the numbers of the paragraphs are mentioned in the caption. Short descriptions have been added where appropriate.
Minor comments:
L36: please change “…but on the other they are faced…” into “…..but on the other hand they are faced….”
AU: done
L41-2: “Cows prefer an open pack area compared to relatively comfortable free stalls [19,20]”: this sentence is difficult to read, please rephrase.
AU: done. It reads now: “For example, cows prefer an open pack area in comparison with comfortable free stalls [20,21].
L46-7: “Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper”. This sentence is very vague please be more specific regarding the aim of the review (see major comments)
AU: It reads now:” Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper to improve animal welfare, increase the productive live, and optimize lifetime milk yield. This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls. First a brief history is presented, followed by several general aspects of a free stall barn. Then the components (bedding, dimensions, dividers, etc.) of the free stall are described. Finally, the impact on animal welfare and economic aspects are discussed.”
Response: Line 47: “Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper to improve animal welfare, increase the productive live, and optimize lifetime milk yield. This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls.” Please rephrase this sentence to “Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper to assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls. Ultimately, this should help to improve animal welfare, increase the productive live, and optimize lifetime milk yield.”
L49: I would suggest changing the title into “the history of the free stall system” to avoid confusion with the title in line 130. Also, the structure that follows is not very clear. The topics that follow “lying behaviour”, “Designing free stalls”, “Number of cows per stall” and “the free stall” seem a bit all over the place and without a clear order. Please try to structure these sections in a logical order and give them clear titles to distinguish between them.
AU: The title has been changed accordingly and the numbering of the paragraphs gives more clarity
Response: The order of sections 4-6 is still confusing. From the text it is still not clear to me what is the difference between section 4 and 6. Could these not be combined? I suggest also to first address any aspects of the entire barn (e.g. section 5) before addressing the cubicles.
L50-1: the use of “seems” suggests that there is some doubt in this statement, which I find difficult to believe. Therefore, please change into “was invented”.
AU: The word ‘seems’ was used on purpose here. There is no clear ‘inventor’ and in the USA there are also people that claim to be the first to have used free stalls. We want to avoid this discussion.
L59-61: “It is interesting that the inventor of the system already from the very beginning used soft mattresses and focused on stall size versus space needed for performing natural behaviour and movements.”: this remark is a bit lost on me, why is it interesting?
AU: We find this interesting because many farmers have used no bedding or rather hard bedding materials for decades (In fact some still do). Also the dimensions of the free stalls are far from acceptable on many farms.
L66-71: “The first free stalls ……seems to be industry-driven.” This section misses references and also list the changes made without explaining the reason for them. A short explanation of the welfare and economic motivation/consequences of these changes would greatly improve this section
AU: The section is rephrased. “All these improvements in design, industry driven or science based, have had major impact on animal welfare and farm economy, and is the basis for modern dairy hous-ing today.” And 11 references have been added.
Response: Please state HOW these changes in design have impacted animal welfare and farm economy. Were they all improvements for both animal welfare & farm economy (I would doubt that)?
L82-3: “Also the reaction of cortisol to an acute stressor or ACTH injection changed”. Please specify how this changed (increase or decrease?)
AU: “changed” has been replaced by “increased”.
L84-6: “Behavioural activity is used as an indication of animal comfort, and lying and standing behaviours are often used as a sign of well-being in cattle and to evaluate the quality of stalls [2,31]”: this is true, but it is important mention in which way they are indicators of animal comfort. Lying may be considered a sign of positive welfare, while standing is usually more a sign of negative welfare and activity in general has no clear association with welfare, since increased activity may be more indicative of e.g. stress and pain, while decreased activity may be a sign of illness (se e.g. L.M.C. Leliveld, G. Provolo. A Review of Welfare Indicators of Indoor-Housed Dairy Cow as a Basis for Integrated Automatic Welfare Assessment Systems. Animals 2020, 10, 1430)
AU: The last sentences of the paragraph now read: “One should, therefore, not compare lying times strictly in order to define better welfare, but when comparing within a certain husbandry system, lying time is an attractive indicator for welfare, that might be measured automatically with a sensor [34]. Lying may be considered a sign of positive welfare, while standing is usually more a sign of negative welfare and activity in general has no clear association with welfare, since increased activity may be more indicative of e.g. stress and pain, while decreased activity may be a sign of illness [34].”
L92-3: “but when comparing within a certain husbandry system, lying time is an attractive indicator for welfare.” This is not exactly correct and clashs with the statement in the previous sentence. Even for comparisons within a certain system, the aspects of the cow (e.g. illness, milk yield etc.) should be controlled for.
AU: We think that we covered this in the previous remark.
Response: Unfortunately the sentence still implies a contradiction. I agree that lying time can be a good indicator of welfare. But, if you first state that higher yielding cows have shorter lying times, that means that even within a certain husbandry system lying time is not a straightforward indicator of welfare, but that cow specific characteristics, like milk yield, should be taken into account. Please rephrase to remove this apparent contradiction.
L94: does the title refer here to the system or just the cubicle? from the section it is not really clear, but the focus seems mainly on the cubicle
AU: A free stall = cubicle. Compost- or straw bedded, free range, packs are something else.
L97-101: “The design of the free stalls … partitions or supports”: it would be good to refer here to a source that describes the natural lying behaviour and positions of cows.
AU: A reference has been included: Van Erp-van der Kooij, E.; Almalik, O.; Cavestany, D.; Roelofs, J.; Van Eerdenburg, F. Lying postures of dairy cows in cubicles and on pasture. Animals 2019, 9, 183, doi:10.3390/ani9040183.
L111-113: “Some precautions are …. with the farmer [51]”. I’m not sure what you want to write here. Are these other factors than stall design that may affect lying behaviour? They seem quite random and considering that one of the factors is discussed extensively in the next section, I don't know if this sentence serves to introduce the rest of the factors that will be discussed or not….please rephrase so that it is clearer if this list is complete or not.
AU: Rephrased into: “Other conditions, like number of cows per stall, barn lay-out, previous experience with free stalls (early adaptation to the system) and the interactions between animals as well as with the farmer [64] should also be taken into consideration when designing a free stall based system.”
L123-4: please replace “however” with “although” and “but” with “it”
AU: done
L132: please explain what is the difference and be then consistent in the use of the terms “bedding” and “bedding materials”
AU: We removed ‘bedding’.
L137: what do you mean with “construction”. Please consider changing it to “and it can be constructed in different ways”
AU: we added: ‘and type of divider’.
L159-161: “The general conclusion from the bedding preference literature, reviewed by Tucker and Weary [34], is that dairy cattle prefer softer surfaces.” This sentence would fit better at the start of the section (e.g. line 144)
AU: Indeed, so we moved it.
L169-364: in the discussion of the different bedding materials, I’m missing a bit the comparison between the different materials: which materials are preferred? And which have been found to be better in terms of cow welfare and health? It would be good to have a short section dedicated to this.
AU: There is not one ‘best’ option. It all depends on what kind of farm one has, where it is located, etc. In Norway, for example, sand is very hard to get. An organic farm needs good quality natural manure as fertilizer, so straw is excellent there. In table 1 several aspects are summarized.
Response: Indeed, I understand that there is not one best option. But especially considering that there is not one best option, I think it would be helpful to dedicate a short section to discussing this (with the aim of aiding farmers and stall designers in their choice). Or at least to mention that the choice of material largely depends on farm location etc.
L187-8: “The number of teat lesions dropped dramatically with flooring softness >8 mm impact, and the number of involuntary cullings dropped with increased softness” this relates to softness and therefore fits better in the previous section
AU: The sentence has been moved. The reference is updated.
L216-7 (title of table 1): “Different flooring materials have different softness levels, and influences differently on the dairy cows.” This sentence is not grammatically correct and I think not really necessary. The second sentence is sufficient here.
AU: it has been removed
L219-20: “The table is only illustrating some plausible effects of flooring softness. 1 Softness is indicative because there is not one common method for measuring softness for all types of floorings.” The first part of this sentence should be in the title (above the table). The table is also missing references.
AU: Rephrased according to suggestion, and references added.
L263-4: “the bacteria numbers may reach their maximum within 2 days”. Is this under cool conditions or in general? it is not clear from the sentence.
AU: We have added ‘under common conditions’.
L373-4: “The basis for the table is not well documented, however commonly used, and should preferably be updated in a scientific study”. I don't understand this sentence, I guess the authors refer to table 3, but what do they mean by 'the basis for the table is not well documented' please rephrase.
AU: The publication of Irish & Merrill is not providing detailed information about how they got to these dimensions.
Response: Thank you for this explanation, but I think this should also be added in the text. Please rephrase this sentence to include this information and add “3” after table so that it is clear which table you refer to.
L375: “herd size”. Do you mean cow size? herd size refers to number of cows, which I guess is not what is meant here
AU: This has been changed: ‘mean size of the cows in the herd’.
383-4: “cleanliness and shininess of dividers and neck rails may confirm that the chosen dimensions are good” please add the sentence in 518-21 (“If the neck rail is shiny due to repeated body contact (figure 3) and/or the cows have abrasions on the withers, the distance to the curb is too short or the neck rail too low [34]. If the freestalls are dirty and the neck rail is not shiny, the distance to the curb may be too large.”) here to explain.
AU: we have added ‘(meaning not clean or shiny)’.
L385-7: “Finally, one should…..for lateral space,” I don't understand these sentences please rephrase to make them clearer.
AU: These sentences have been changed. “Finally, one should be careful to assess single stall design parameters isolated from others. A restrictive stall front design is associated with a higher need for lateral space [148]. The location of this lateral lunge space depends on the length of the free stall. It should be placed in such a way that the cow has an easy, natural access [131].”
Table 3: some numbers that should be subscript are normal font, please change this.
AU: done
L488: “more popular”. Popular with whom? the cows? please describe it a bit more accurately: did more cows choose stalls with rope dividers?
AU: The sentence has been changed into: ‘Gwynn et al. [165] found that dividers with a rope replacing a fixed bar were preferred by the cows above the original fixed version.’
L454-5: “However, there are reasons to believe that the design of the stall front is of greater importance for stall function compared to divider design per se.” Really? this is not the feeling you get from the preceding text, therefore please provide some argumentation for this.
AU: The sentence has been deleted.
L498: “to achieve clean stalls”. This needs to be explained, the whole section before was about the space a cow needs, what is the link to clean stalls?
AU: indeed this sentence was rather strange. No idea what happened here. It now reads: “No head rails should e.g. be positioned between the top of a brisket board and 0.7 m above the floor, this should be preferably 1 m.”.
L516: “where the cows may tell us”. This is a bit odd way of writing. I would propose "A practical approach that may tell us whether the position is good for most cows in the herd, is to check… "
AU: the sentence has been changed accordingly
L534-5: “because it positions smaller cows and lying cows with less interference with normal rising movements.” This part of the sentence seems grammatically incorrect. Please rephrase.
L542: “large diameter”. How this can reduce contact pressure is not immediately clear. Please clarify.
L537: “Aspects of use”. This is not a very clear title and the purpose of this section is also not very clear. Please rephrase the title to better reflect the section and use the first part introduce what this section will discuss.
AU: The title has been changed into: “Improved options for other behaviour”
It now explains: “As explained before, comfortable free stalls will lead to longer lying times and thus a longer occupancy of these free stalls [92,116]. This means that fewer animals (except those feeding, eating, etc.), will stand, walk and thereby occupy space in the walkways were they perform other activities.”
Response: Since this title refers only to the section immediately following (and not to sections 7.1-3). I suggest to change this into section 7.1 and add a overlapping title, e.g. “further considerations for free stall design”
L619: “The optimal stall (conclusion)”. With this section title I was expecting a bit more specific guidelines. The conclusion also feels like it's missing something. As I mentioned before the aim of the review should be addressed here again. And Ideally here something should be said that could help direct further research. Also, as I mentioned before I was expecting in the review a bit clearer addressing of the effects on cow lying behaviour/comfort, health etc. This also applies to the conclusion.
AU: The purpose of the review has been added at the start of the conclusion. The main conclusions of the review are presented here. It is not possible to give the exact optimal dimensions because these depend on the size of the cows and this varies among farms. The ideal bedding material is also depending on location and availability as explained in the review.
Response: Of course, one cannot expect that there is one optimal design. However, if the aim of the paper is to give some guidance to farmers and designers of free stalls, then this issue needs to be addressed, along with some explanation of how the best design may depend on farm type etc. At the moment the conclusion mainly focusses on the impact on welfare and economy. While I don’t suggest to delete this, this doesn’t reflect the focus of the review.
Author Response
The reviewers have incorporated most of my suggestions and the readability of the manuscript has been improved. Still, I find that several of my concerns have not sufficiently been addressed and, as a consequence, still feel that the purpose and structure of the review are insufficiently clear to the reader. Therefore, I have added some comments to the author response (in italics).
Again we thank the reviewer for the effort of reviewing our manuscript. It certainly has improved. Below we give our answers and how we adapted the manuscript, starting with AU: (also in italics).
We thank the reviewer for the comments, they were helpful in improving the manuscript. We copied the original comments and our answers start with AU:
The review provides a very useful overview of stall structure. It may therefore present a useful contribution to the scientific community. However, at the moment it feels a bit lacking purpose and structure and I was hoping for a bit better insight into the consequences of stall design on cow comfort, health and economy after reading the review (as suggested from the abstract). Therefore, I suggest it still requires major revision before it could be accepted. I have serval major and minor comments.
The first is that the authors do not clearly state the purpose of this review. Is it just to give some guidelines for people designing stalls? Is it to identify missing knowledge in the research on stall design? Is it to provide an overview of the consequences of stall design on cow comfort, health and economy? The purpose of this review should be clearly presented in the abstract and introduction and then addressed again in the conclusion.
AU: The purpose has been added at the end of the abstract: “This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls.”
Response: While this sentence explains what the authors like to achieve with the review, it doesn’t clarify what they are actually presenting in this review. Please extend this sentence by adding that information: “the aim of this review is to provide an overview of …….., with the aim to assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls”. Also, please move the sentence to line 12 (after “…..their rising movements”).
AU: The sentence has been changed and moved.
And the end of the introduction: “Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper. to improve animal welfare, increase the productive live, and optimize lifetime milk yield. This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls.
The conclusion starts now: “This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls.”
Secondly, the structure of the review is not very clear. Please provide, at the end of the introduction, a short section to describe the structure of the paper and what this structure serves (this would further help to clarify the purpose of the paper). Also, the use of different fonts is not clear enough to distinguish between sections, sub-sections and sub-sub-sections. Better use numbers (1, 1.1 and 1.1.1 etc) for these.
AU: The structure of the review is outlined now at the end of the introduction:
“First a brief history is presented, followed by several general aspects of a free stall barn. Then the components (bedding, dimensions, dividers, etc.) of the free stall are described. Finally, the impact on animal welfare and economic aspects are discussed.”
The (sub)sections have now been numbered.
Response: I appreciate that the authors added some description of the structure that follows, but as it is, it still doesn’t help to clarify the structure. A few (but not all) following sections are now mentioned, but without explaining any purpose for discussing them. Please mention all major sections separately (sections 2-7) and explain why these sections need to be addressed (e.g. what is the purpose of addressing lying behaviour here?). I’m sorry to insist on this, but I think it may considerably help the reader to understand the purpose of the paper and its different sections.
AU: An outline of the review is now added at the end of the introduction, and purpose is also added:
First a brief history (2) is presented, followed by general aspects of a free stall barn that has to be considered when designing dairy barns with free stalls. A section is discussing the importance of lying for cows (3), and another the number of cows per stall (4). Then the components of the free stall are described (5). The free stall components may conflict with the cow body, her movements etc., hence proper design/ location is of importance for e.g. animal welfare. Further, other considerations of free stall design (6), like cow comfort, economic aspects and future perspectives are discussed. To conclude, the optimal free stall is described (7).
Thirdly, from the abstract I was expecting to gain a better overview of how the stall design can affect cow lying behaviour/comfort and health and while the authors address the consequences for cow comfort, health, cleanliness and economic considerations throughout the paper, they seem a bit lost in the entire text. It would be good if they could be addressed more explicitly in every section so that it is clearer which aspects are affected most by certain stall features. In addition, it would help to provide, at the end, a short overview of which aspects of stall design are particularly important for cow lying behaviour, cow comfort, health, cleanliness and economy.
AU: Most of these aspects are already mentioned different places in the paper, and will be difficult to implement without major rework of the paper. We have however ensured/ added a conclusion/ “wrap up comment” to major sections as a response to the comment above.
Finally, not all readers may be expected to be familiar with free-stall design and the names of the different features. Therefore, it would help if figure 3 could be introduced earlier and adapted to show all the aspects of the cubicle that are addressed in the text, so that the readers can immediately find the location of each element. Also, a short description at the start of each section would be helpful to better understand the feature that is being discussed.
AU: The figure is now presented earlier in the text and the numbers of the paragraphs are mentioned in the caption. Short descriptions have been added where appropriate.
Minor comments:
L36: please change “…but on the other they are faced…” into “…..but on the other hand they are faced….”
AU: done
L41-2: “Cows prefer an open pack area compared to relatively comfortable free stalls [19,20]”: this sentence is difficult to read, please rephrase.
AU: done. It reads now: “For example, cows prefer an open pack area in comparison with comfortable free stalls [20,21].
L46-7: “Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper”. This sentence is very vague please be more specific regarding the aim of the review (see major comments)
AU: It reads now:” Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper to improve animal welfare, increase the productive live, and optimize lifetime milk yield. This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls. First a brief history is presented, followed by several general aspects of a free stall barn. Then the components (bedding, dimensions, dividers, etc.) of the free stall are described. Finally, the impact on animal welfare and economic aspects are discussed.”
Response: Line 47: “Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper to improve animal welfare, increase the productive live, and optimize lifetime milk yield. This review should assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls.” Please rephrase this sentence to “Several studies on different aspects of the free stall design are reviewed in the present paper to assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls. Ultimately, this should help to improve animal welfare, increase the productive live, and optimize lifetime milk yield.”
AU: The sentence has been changed according to your suggestions
L49: I would suggest changing the title into “the history of the free stall system” to avoid confusion with the title in line 130. Also, the structure that follows is not very clear. The topics that follow “lying behaviour”, “Designing free stalls”, “Number of cows per stall” and “the free stall” seem a bit all over the place and without a clear order. Please try to structure these sections in a logical order and give them clear titles to distinguish between them.
AU: The title has been changed accordingly and the numbering of the paragraphs gives more clarity
Response: The order of sections 4-6 is still confusing. From the text it is still not clear to me what is the difference between section 4 and 6. Could these not be combined? I suggest also to first address any aspects of the entire barn (e.g. section 5) before addressing the cubicles.
AU: This, indeed, is a logical move so section 4 is now merged with section 6 as section 5 (and all further sections renumbered).
L50-1: the use of “seems” suggests that there is some doubt in this statement, which I find difficult to believe. Therefore, please change into “was invented”.
AU: The word ‘seems’ was used on purpose here. There is no clear ‘inventor’ and in the USA there are also people that claim to be the first to have used free stalls. We have stated mr Bramley as the inventor since his paper clearly shows the idea behind this invention, whereas we have found no others to explain their idea. We want to avoid this discussion.
L59-61: “It is interesting that the inventor of the system already from the very beginning used soft mattresses and focused on stall size versus space needed for performing natural behaviour and movements.”: this remark is a bit lost on me, why is it interesting?
AU: We find this interesting because many farmers have used no bedding or rather hard bedding materials for decades (In fact some still do). Also the dimensions of the free stalls are far from acceptable on many farms.
L66-71: “The first free stalls ……seems to be industry-driven.” This section misses references and also list the changes made without explaining the reason for them. A short explanation of the welfare and economic motivation/consequences of these changes would greatly improve this section
AU: The section is rephrased. “All these improvements in design, industry driven or science based, have had major impact on animal welfare and farm economy, and is the basis for modern dairy hous-ing today.” And 11 references have been added.
Response: Please state HOW these changes in design have impacted animal welfare and farm economy. Were they all improvements for both animal welfare & farm economy (I would doubt that)?
AU: We think that to fully answer how these changes in design have impacted animal welfare and farm economy throughout the time, much more space than a kind of finishing remark is needed. Chapter 2 is about the history of the free stall and, to focus on this, the last sentence is now dropped.
L82-3: “Also the reaction of cortisol to an acute stressor or ACTH injection changed”. Please specify how this changed (increase or decrease?)
AU: “changed” has been replaced by “increased”.
L84-6: “Behavioural activity is used as an indication of animal comfort, and lying and standing behaviours are often used as a sign of well-being in cattle and to evaluate the quality of stalls [2,31]”: this is true, but it is important mention in which way they are indicators of animal comfort. Lying may be considered a sign of positive welfare, while standing is usually more a sign of negative welfare and activity in general has no clear association with welfare, since increased activity may be more indicative of e.g. stress and pain, while decreased activity may be a sign of illness (se e.g. L.M.C. Leliveld, G. Provolo. A Review of Welfare Indicators of Indoor-Housed Dairy Cow as a Basis for Integrated Automatic Welfare Assessment Systems. Animals 2020, 10, 1430)
AU: The last sentences of the paragraph now read: “One should, therefore, not compare lying times strictly in order to define better welfare, but when comparing within a certain husbandry system, lying time is an attractive indicator for welfare, that might be measured automatically with a sensor [34]. Lying may be considered a sign of positive welfare, while standing is usually more a sign of negative welfare and activity in general has no clear association with welfare, since increased activity may be more indicative of e.g. stress and pain, while decreased activity may be a sign of illness [34].”
L92-3: “but when comparing within a certain husbandry system, lying time is an attractive indicator for welfare.” This is not exactly correct and clashs with the statement in the previous sentence. Even for comparisons within a certain system, the aspects of the cow (e.g. illness, milk yield etc.) should be controlled for.
AU: We think that we covered this in the previous remark.
Response: Unfortunately the sentence still implies a contradiction. I agree that lying time can be a good indicator of welfare. But, if you first state that higher yielding cows have shorter lying times, that means that even within a certain husbandry system lying time is not a straightforward indicator of welfare, but that cow specific characteristics, like milk yield, should be taken into account. Please rephrase to remove this apparent contradiction.
AU: This is indeed a point. So we changed the text into: “Higher yielding cows also have shorter lying times because they need to spend more time eating [44]. One should, therefore, not compare lying times strictly in order to define better welfare, but when comparing within a certain husbandry system, and taking certain cow specific characteristics, like milk yield, into consideration, lying time is an attractive indicator for welfare, that might be measured automatically with a sensor [45].” We hope that this solves this problem.
L94: does the title refer here to the system or just the cubicle? from the section it is not really clear, but the focus seems mainly on the cubicle
AU: A free stall = cubicle. Compost- or straw bedded, free range, packs are something else.
L97-101: “The design of the free stalls … partitions or supports”: it would be good to refer here to a source that describes the natural lying behaviour and positions of cows.
AU: A reference has been included: Van Erp-van der Kooij, E.; Almalik, O.; Cavestany, D.; Roelofs, J.; Van Eerdenburg, F. Lying postures of dairy cows in cubicles and on pasture. Animals 2019, 9, 183, doi:10.3390/ani9040183.
L111-113: “Some precautions are …. with the farmer [51]”. I’m not sure what you want to write here. Are these other factors than stall design that may affect lying behaviour? They seem quite random and considering that one of the factors is discussed extensively in the next section, I don't know if this sentence serves to introduce the rest of the factors that will be discussed or not….please rephrase so that it is clearer if this list is complete or not.
AU: Rephrased into: “Other conditions, like number of cows per stall, barn lay-out, previous experience with free stalls (early adaptation to the system) and the interactions between animals as well as with the farmer [64] should also be taken into consideration when designing a free stall based system.”
L123-4: please replace “however” with “although” and “but” with “it”
AU: done
L132: please explain what is the difference and be then consistent in the use of the terms “bedding” and “bedding materials”
AU: We removed ‘bedding’.
L137: what do you mean with “construction”. Please consider changing it to “and it can be constructed in different ways”
AU: we added: ‘and type of divider’.
L159-161: “The general conclusion from the bedding preference literature, reviewed by Tucker and Weary [34], is that dairy cattle prefer softer surfaces.” This sentence would fit better at the start of the section (e.g. line 144)
AU: Indeed, so we moved it.
L169-364: in the discussion of the different bedding materials, I’m missing a bit the comparison between the different materials: which materials are preferred? And which have been found to be better in terms of cow welfare and health? It would be good to have a short section dedicated to this.
AU: There is not one ‘best’ option. It all depends on what kind of farm one has, where it is located, etc. In Norway, for example, sand is very hard to get. An organic farm needs good quality natural manure as fertilizer, so straw is excellent there. In table 1 several aspects are summarized.
Response: Indeed, I understand that there is not one best option. But especially considering that there is not one best option, I think it would be helpful to dedicate a short section to discussing this (with the aim of aiding farmers and stall designers in their choice). Or at least to mention that the choice of material largely depends on farm location etc.
AU: We now added at the end of 5.1.3: “One ideal bedding material for all farms does not exist, since every farm has its own characteristics according to location, management, size etc, and availability of certain materials, like sand, or the type of farm ultimately determine the choice of the farmer. Organic farms, for example, focuses more on the nutrient content of the manure and thus straw is preferred over sand there. Hence, it is normally more important to consider traits of the selected bedding, e.g. dry and clean, than choice of bedding per se.”
L187-8: “The number of teat lesions dropped dramatically with flooring softness >8 mm impact, and the number of involuntary cullings dropped with increased softness” this relates to softness and therefore fits better in the previous section
AU: The sentence has been moved. The reference is updated.
L216-7 (title of table 1): “Different flooring materials have different softness levels, and influences differently on the dairy cows.” This sentence is not grammatically correct and I think not really necessary. The second sentence is sufficient here.
AU: it has been removed
L219-20: “The table is only illustrating some plausible effects of flooring softness. 1 Softness is indicative because there is not one common method for measuring softness for all types of floorings.” The first part of this sentence should be in the title (above the table). The table is also missing references.
AU: Rephrased according to suggestion, and references added.
L263-4: “the bacteria numbers may reach their maximum within 2 days”. Is this under cool conditions or in general? it is not clear from the sentence.
AU: We have added ‘under common conditions’.
L373-4: “The basis for the table is not well documented, however commonly used, and should preferably be updated in a scientific study”. I don't understand this sentence, I guess the authors refer to table 3, but what do they mean by 'the basis for the table is not well documented' please rephrase.
AU: The publication of Irish & Merrill is not providing detailed information about how they got to these dimensions.
Response: Thank you for this explanation, but I think this should also be added in the text. Please rephrase this sentence to include this information and add “3” after table so that it is clear which table you refer to.
AU: This is now added in the text and the number 3 too.
L375: “herd size”. Do you mean cow size? herd size refers to number of cows, which I guess is not what is meant here
AU: This has been changed: ‘mean size of the cows in the herd’.
383-4: “cleanliness and shininess of dividers and neck rails may confirm that the chosen dimensions are good” please add the sentence in 518-21 (“If the neck rail is shiny due to repeated body contact (figure 3) and/or the cows have abrasions on the withers, the distance to the curb is too short or the neck rail too low [34]. If the freestalls are dirty and the neck rail is not shiny, the distance to the curb may be too large.”) here to explain.
AU: we have added ‘(meaning not clean or shiny)’.
L385-7: “Finally, one should…..for lateral space,” I don't understand these sentences please rephrase to make them clearer.
AU: These sentences have been changed. “Finally, one should be careful to assess single stall design parameters isolated from others. A restrictive stall front design is associated with a higher need for lateral space [148]. The location of this lateral lunge space depends on the length of the free stall. It should be placed in such a way that the cow has an easy, natural access [131].”
Table 3: some numbers that should be subscript are normal font, please change this.
AU: done
L488: “more popular”. Popular with whom? the cows? please describe it a bit more accurately: did more cows choose stalls with rope dividers?
AU: The sentence has been changed into: ‘Gwynn et al. [165] found that dividers with a rope replacing a fixed bar were preferred by the cows above the original fixed version.’
L454-5: “However, there are reasons to believe that the design of the stall front is of greater importance for stall function compared to divider design per se.” Really? this is not the feeling you get from the preceding text, therefore please provide some argumentation for this.
AU: The sentence has been deleted.
L498: “to achieve clean stalls”. This needs to be explained, the whole section before was about the space a cow needs, what is the link to clean stalls?
AU: indeed this sentence was rather strange. No idea what happened here. It now reads: “No head rails should e.g. be positioned between the top of a brisket board and 0.7 m above the floor, this should be preferably 1 m.”.
L516: “where the cows may tell us”. This is a bit odd way of writing. I would propose "A practical approach that may tell us whether the position is good for most cows in the herd, is to check… "
AU: the sentence has been changed accordingly
L534-5: “because it positions smaller cows and lying cows with less interference with normal rising movements.” This part of the sentence seems grammatically incorrect. Please rephrase.
L542: “large diameter”. How this can reduce contact pressure is not immediately clear. Please clarify.
AU: Larger diameter equals larger contact area equals lower contact pressure. This is basic physics, and we do not think it is necessary to explain this.
L537: “Aspects of use”. This is not a very clear title and the purpose of this section is also not very clear. Please rephrase the title to better reflect the section and use the first part introduce what this section will discuss.
AU: The title has been changed into: “Improved options for other behaviour”
It now explains: “As explained before, comfortable free stalls will lead to longer lying times and thus a longer occupancy of these free stalls [92,116]. This means that fewer animals (except those feeding, eating, etc.), will stand, walk and thereby occupy space in the walkways were they perform other activities.”
Response: Since this title refers only to the section immediately following (and not to sections 7.1-3). I suggest to change this into section 7.1 and add a overlapping title, e.g. “further considerations for free stall design”
AU: The title and structure of this part has been changed.
L619: “The optimal stall (conclusion)”. With this section title I was expecting a bit more specific guidelines. The conclusion also feels like it's missing something. As I mentioned before the aim of the review should be addressed here again. And Ideally here something should be said that could help direct further research. Also, as I mentioned before I was expecting in the review a bit clearer addressing of the effects on cow lying behaviour/comfort, health etc. This also applies to the conclusion.
AU: The purpose of the review has been added at the start of the conclusion. The main conclusions of the review are presented here. It is not possible to give the exact optimal dimensions because these depend on the size of the cows and this varies among farms. The ideal bedding material is also depending on location and availability as explained in the review.
Response: Of course, one cannot expect that there is one optimal design. However, if the aim of the paper is to give some guidance to farmers and designers of free stalls, then this issue needs to be addressed, along with some explanation of how the best design may depend on farm type etc. At the moment the conclusion mainly focusses on the impact on welfare and economy. While I don’t suggest to delete this, this doesn’t reflect the focus of the review.
AU: The conclusion is rephrased with a clearer focus on giving guidance to farmers and stall designers about stall design. This conclusion, however, has to be kept in general terms. This general perspective is now clarified in the text.
