Nuertingen-Geislingen University, GERMANY, OPUS
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Lying Behaviour in Dairy Goats: Effects of a New Automated Feeding System Assessed by Accelerometer Technology
No full textThe aim of this study was to evaluate lying behaviour in dairy goats before and after installation of an optimized automatic concentrated feeding system (AFS). A mixed-horned herd of Bunte Deutsche Edelziege was used. As many agonistic interactions between goats happen at the feeding place, a new automated feeding system was installed to better fulfil the needs of horned goats. Lying behaviour is an indicator to ascertain animal welfare of ruminants. In order to measure lying behaviour accelerometer technology was used and verified by video analyses. The results show an agreement of 99.62–99.93% per lying time by comparing accelerometers to video data. Over all goats, a mean ± SD lying time (LT) of 11.78 ± 1.47 h/d, a mean ± SD lying bout duration (LBD) of 0.51 ± 0.10 h/bout and a mean ± SD frequency of lying bouts (FLB) of 24.35 ± 5.57 were found. Lying behaviour follows a seasonal progression with significant lowest LBD and highest FLB in summer. With the old AFS significant differences in LBD and FLB were detected between horned and hornless goats, but with the new AFS results were adjusted. Findings suggest that changes in feeding management do not affect the general seasonal progression of lying behaviour but can affect the behavioural differences between horned and hornless dairy goats
Emission taxes, firm relocation, and product differentiation
No full textThis paper studies the effect of an emission tax on the relocation decision in a duopoly with vertical product differentiation. We establish the relationship between an exogenous product quality markup, relocation cost, and emission taxation in a two-country-setting for three cases: (a) an environmental tax set only by one country, (b) non-cooperative environmental taxation in both countries, and (c) coordinated environmental taxation. We show that a larger product quality markup and, thus, weaker competition can serve as a substitute for environmental policy as both reduce emissions. However, weaker competition makes firm relocation more likely, which results in emission shifting instead of emission reduction. The higher the product quality markup, the more likely it is that at least one firm relocates to the foreign country. Emission taxation in the foreign country changes location decisions: If also the foreign country applies an emission tax, at least one firm stays in the home country. If both governments set taxes non-cooperatively, the low-quality firm always stays in the home country. If both countries set taxes cooperatively, both firms are more likely to stay in the home country. However, relocation of the low-quality firm is a possible outcome under cooperative taxation
