Environmental comfort, such as quality of the resting area, temperature, available space, social environment and management routines affect all on resting behaviour and sleep. Thus changes in resting behaviour and sleep could be used as indicators for the welfare level.
Adult cattle are sleeping only around 4 hours per day, in short 5 min bouts around the day. But calves, as all young animal, need more sleep. What do the cattle need for a proper sleep? To answer that, one should first develop non-invasive sleep registering methods to be used in cow barns.
Contact:
PhD Laura Hänninen, laura.hanninen@helsinki.fi
PhD Marianna Norring, marianna.norring@helsinki.fi
PhD Ann-Helena Hokkanen, ann-helena.hokkanen@helsinki.fi
Very little is known about the effects of resting comfort or sleep in horses.