Lying and walking as in nature
- animal comfort for fattening bulls -

The guiding principle for fattening bulls should also be: lying and walking as in nature!

The very hard-wearing LOSPA swiss rubber covering for slatted floors was developed in cooperation with Swiss bull fatteners and has proven successfully in practice for many years. The practical use and reliability, and the positive effects on animal well-being, of LOSPA swiss were scientifically examined at several institutions and organisations in Germany (FLI Celle, LMU Munich, LfL Bayern), Switzerland (BVET) and Austria (VU Vienna).

A thesis from Munich University shows that if only a part of the pen is fitted out with rubber, the animals show a clear preference for the rubber flooring (see picture). The animals appreciate the comfort and the slip resistance on the soft surface. This applies not only to standing and walking animals, where such behaviour as mounting other animals and rank fights can take place without the risk of the animals slipping, but it also benefits the animals when resting. Lying down (kneel-down test) and standing up on hard floors is painful, whereas rubber floors help to reduce extreme joint straining. This is expressed by  30 % better carpal joint health (carpal hygroma), and in the natural lying behaviour of the bulls.  The thermal insulation properties of the rubber in the lying sections also contribute to the animals' welfare. This is specifically important for houses with an outdoor climate and which have no straw bedding material.

Preference of bulls for soft flooring in pens
only partially fitted out with rubber flooring
(Reiter, LfL Bayern, Germany)

Tail tip injuries due to the tails being stepped on, leading to increasing numbers of infections or the loss of tail tips are an increasingly severe problem for most bull fatteners. But scientists at FLI in Celle demonstrated that the frequency of serious tail tip injuries (> 70 %) and tail tips being lost (> 30 %) clearly decreased by housing the animals on rubber floors. The injury frequency dropped to below 1/3 of the animals and fewer than 10 % lost their tail tips.

Practical experience has shown that  improved animal health has resulted in a 50-150 g higher daily growth due to better feed efficiency than in fully slotted pens without rubber flooring. This means that a shorter fattening period can be taken into account as the animals do not waste any energy on fighting stress and diseases. Another positive effect is that the costs of vets and treatments are lower, so that overall this investment in animal comfort is also economically interesting for bull fatteners.

Tolerances:
thickness: +3/-2 mm
length + width: +/- 1.5 % (DIN ISO 3302-1 tolerance class M4)
The tolerances also apply within the mat and when installed.