Prepuce sucking and tongue play in housed fattening bulls
Sambraus, H.H.; Gotthardt, A.
Deutsche Tierärztliche Wochenschrift 92(11-12): 465-468
1985
ISSN/ISBN: 0341-6593 PMID: 3910392 Document Number: 255730
Prepuce sucking and tongue rolling were studied on two farms, on both of which prepuce sucking had led to damage of the prepuce. The bulls (mostly Simmental) were kept on slatted floors and fed with maize silage. During 5 hours of observation, 200 of 348 bulls sucked the prepuce of another bull. There was little variation between farms: 143 of 255 (56%) on one and 57 of 93 (61%) on the other. In an extreme case, one bull sucked 48 times at the prepuce of another bull. Tongue rolling was observed in 118 bulls (34%), with considerable difference between farms: 95 of 255 (37%) on one and 23 of 93 (25%) on the other. Tongue rolling was not correlated with prepuce sucking, and was attributed to lack of structured feed. It is suggested that prepuce sucking was a response either to difficulty in reaching the drinking trough or difficulty in drinking sufficient water in a short period of time. On the larger farm, there was too little space per animal and troughs were too narrow, while on the other farms the flow of water into the troughs was too slow.