Dairy Heifer Motivation and Space Use Data from a Freestall Barn Study

A study of 48 Holstein dairy heifers assessed their motivation to access additional space in a freestall barn. The data likely contains records of individual heifer weights pushed to access space, temporal use patterns, and group dynamics. The dataset was authored by Malina Suchon and last updated on Borealis Harvested Dataverse in July 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling individual animal motivation based on maximum weight pushed to access a resource.
• Analyzing temporal patterns of space use during free and restricted access periods.
• Studying social influence on behavior based on herd mate movements mentioned in the description.

Strengths

• Includes data from 48 individual animals, allowing for individual-level analysis.
• Captures a range of expressed motivation, with maximum weight pushed varying from 1.5 to 22.5 kg.
• Describes a controlled experimental setup with specific pen dimensions and access protocols.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.

Provenance

Source

Borealis Harvested Dataverse

Collection Method

Experimental study where groups of heifers were given access to an additional space, either freely or via a weighted gate.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-18 04:10:52; freshness should be verified.