Animal Behavior and Well-Being 1

摘要

We investigated how social housing in a calf’s first weeks of life affectsmilk feeding behavior, health, and subsequent adaptation to an autofeeder.Holstein heifer calves were randomly assigned to individual (n = 16calves) or pair-housing (n = 8 pairs) at birth and received milk via a teatbucket (8 L/d; twice daily). Calves were mingled between treatments andgroup-housed (8 calves/pen) at 13 ± 2 d of age and fed via an autofeeder(12 L/d). At birth and upon introduction to the autofeeder, we recordedthe number of sessions (based on twice daily feed delivery or autofeederchecks) where the calf did not feed voluntarily and required assistance.We measured daily milk intake and health (scouring events) from birthand daily milk feeding behavior for 1 wk following introduction to theautofeeder. Data were summarized by pair of calves (averaging acrossadjacent and consecutively enrolled individually-housed calves) and wereanalyzed in a general linear mixed model with housing treatment as a fixedeffect, pen as a random effect for post-grouping outcomes, and day as arepeated measure for milk feeding behavior. Social housing did not affectthe number of assists required to learn to use the teat bucket (1.9; SE = 0.2;P = 0.26) or milk intake in the first 2 wk of life (6.1 L/d; SE = 0.2; P = 0.7).All calves developed scours and age when first diagnosed with scours didnot differ (6.2 d of age; SE = 0.6; P = 0.4) but pair-housed calves tended toscour for fewer days (4.2 vs. 5.8 d; SE = 0.6; P = 0.06). Upon introductionto the autofeeder, calves did not differ in the number of assists requiredto feed voluntarily (1.5; SE = 0.2; P = 0.7) but previously individually-housed calves occupied the feeder for longer (34.9 vs. 26.6 min/d; SE= 3.1; P = 0.003) without affecting milk intake (7.3 L/d; SE = 0.5; P= 0.6) or visit frequency (4.0 visits/d; SE = 0.4; P = 0.4). These resultssuggest that behavior and learning ability surrounding milk feeding areminimally affected by social housing, but pair-housing in the first weeksof life had a positive effect on health and efficiency of autofeeder use.