Neonatal calf diarrhoea affects lying behaviour in individually-housed dairy heifer calves

摘要

Lying behaviour of dairy heifer calves is affected by neonatal calf diarrhoea (NCD). The frequency and duration of lying bouts differ from those of healthy calves.Neonatal calf diarrhoea (NCD) is one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality in milk-fed calves (Johnson et al., 2017). Outcomes are better where disease is detected early and animals are treated promptly. Previous studies reported the effects of NCD on lying behaviour of group-housed calves (Sutherland et al., 2018). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether accelerometers can detect the early signs of NCD in individually-housed calves.