Table 6.
Descriptive statistics and means comparison of tail injuries for 82 spring-calving, pasture-based farms in southern Ireland during grazing (VISIT1) and when housed (VISIT2) in the 2019–2020 season1
| Tail injury | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lacerations | Breaks | Docks—all | Docks—short | Docks—long | |
| Grazing | |||||
| Mean % | 1.7 | 9.1 | — | — | — |
| SEM | 0.38 | 1.07 | — | — | — |
| Min | 0 | 0 | — | — | — |
| Max | 17.7 | 51.6 | — | — | — |
| Median | 0 | 7 | — | — | — |
| Lower 95% CI | 0.9 | 7 | — | — | — |
| Upper 95% CI | 2.4 | 11.2 | — | — | — |
| Housed | |||||
| Mean % | 2.8 | 8.5 | 7.5 | 2.6 | 4.9 |
| SEM | 0.56 | 1.03 | 1.53 | 0.66 | 1.25 |
| Min | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Max | 21.8 | 47.3 | 74.5 | 40 | 72.6 |
| Median | 0 | 4.9 | 1.8 | 0 | 0 |
| Lower 95% CI | 1.7 | 6.5 | 4.5 | 1.3 | 2.4 |
| Upper 95% CI | 3.9 | 10.6 | 10.6 | 3.9 | 7.4 |
| P-value2 (grazing vs. housed) | 0.11‡ | 0.31‡ | — | — | — |
1Mean of 54 cows/farm (range: 33 to 76 cows/farm) scored at VISIT1 and 52 cows/farm (range: 31 to 72 cows/farm) scored at VISIT2.
2P-value for comparison of mean differences between VISIT1 and VISIT 2 (significant difference at P < 0.05). Tests were either paired t-tests for normally distributed variables (†) or Wilcoxon signed-rank tests for non-normally distributed variables (‡).